AC  8  . H8  1909 

Horton,  Robert  F.  1855-1934. 
Great  issues 


* 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/greatissuesOOhort 


GREAT  ISSUES 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO  ,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


/ 


GREAT  ISSUES 


BY 

v' 

ROBERT  F.  HORTON 


AUTHOR  OF  “  INSPIRATION  AND  THE  BIBLE,”  “  REVELATION 
AND  THE  BIBLE,”  AND  “  VERBUM  DEI  ” 


Nrfn  gotk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1909 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1909, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  December,  1909. 


Norfoaob  $resss 

J.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

MYTHS . I 

CHAPTER  II 

RELIGION . 29 

CHAPTER  III 

MORALITY . 63 

CHAPTER  IV 

POLITICS . 92 

CHAPTER  V 

SOCIALISM . 24 

CHAPTER  VI 

PHILOSOPHY . I56 

CHAPTER  VII 

SCIENCE . 188 

v 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE 

THEOLOGY  .........  222 

CHAPTER  IX 

LITERATURE . 255 

CHAPTER  X 

ART  ..........  286 

CHAPTER  XI 

LIFE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .319 

CHAPTER  XII 

DEATH . 351 


INDEX 


.  381 


GREAT  ISSUES 


* 


GREAT  ISSUES 


CHAPTER  I 

MYTHS 

When  Plato  desired  to  utter  some  truth  which 
lies  deep  in  the  mystery  of  being  he  was  accustomed 
to  glide  into  what  he  called  a  myth.  Such  myths, 
“truths  embodied  in  a  tale,”  are  among  the  master¬ 
pieces  of  his  style,  or,  one  might  say,  of  all  literature. 
He  uses  the  myth,  not  to  avoid  speaking  truth,  but 
in  order  to  speak  it.  There  was  no  other  medium 
through  which  he  could  convey  realities  which  belong, 
not  to  the  phenomenal,  but  to  the  noumenal  world. 
Well  he  knew  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  that  spir¬ 
itual  background  of  human  life.  Dialectic  was  no 
adequate  instrument.  Logic  missed  the  mark. 
Science,  if  he  had  known  the  meaning  of  science 
in  the  modern  sense,  made  no  pretence  to  pene¬ 
trate  that  region,  or  to  report  on  it.  And  yet  men 
wished  to  know,  and  he  for  one  felt  able  to  tell, 
much  that  lay  thus  beyond  the  confines  of  scientific 
inquiry  or  of  logical  discussion.  This  vague  stuff 
of  the  soul  and  of  life,  these  certainties  which  ad¬ 
mitted  of  no  proof,  these  dogmas  which  could  never 

B  I 


2 


GREAT  ISSUES 


be  formulated,  he  brought  into  the  plane  of  common 
observation,  if  not  of  common  understanding,  by 
means  of  tales  —  the  Greek  word  /jlvOo<;)  which  in 
English  takes  the  form  of  “myth”  is  only  a  tale  — 
tales  beautiful  in  form,  sparkling  with  wit  and  wis¬ 
dom;  tales  which,  not  affecting  to  be  true,  yet  con¬ 
veyed  the  deepest,  the  ultimate,  the  ineffable  truth. 

For  example,  the  “Gorgias”  ends  with  the  myth 
of  Minos,  Rhadamanthus,  and  ^Lacus.  “Listen,” 
says  Socrates  to  Callicles,  “as  story-tellers  say,  to 
a  very  pretty  tale  which  I  daresay  that  you  may  be 
disposed  to  regard  as  a  fable  only,  but  which,  as  I 
believe,  is  a  true  tale,  for  I  mean  to  speak  the  truth.” 
There  the  myth  begins.  Formerly  men  were  judged 
in  their  bodies  and  clothes  before  death,  with  the 
result  that  the  soul  frequently  reached  the  wrong 
destination.  The  judges  were  awed  by  the  trappings, 
and  also  misled  by  the  clothes  which  they  themselves 
had  on.  Zeus  therefore  determined  to  make  a 
change:  “In  the  first  place,  I  will  deprive  men  of 
the  foreknowledge  of  death,  which  they  at  present 
possess;  that  is  a  commission  of  which  I  have  al¬ 
ready  entrusted  the  execution  to  Prometheus;  in 
the  second  place,  they  shall  be  entirely  stripped  be¬ 
fore  they  are  judged,  for  they  shall  be  judged  when 
they  are  dead;  and  the  judge,  too,  shall  be  naked 
—  that  is  to  say,  dead :  he  with  his  naked  soul  shall 
pierce  into  the  other  naked  soul,  and  they  shall  die 
suddenly,  and  be  deprived  of  all  their  kindred,  and 
leave  their  brave  attire  strewn  upon  the  earth;  con- 


MYTHS 


3 


ducted  in  this  manner  the  judgment  will  be  just.” 
The  three  judges  shall  give  judgment  in  the  meadow 
at  the  place  where  the  three  ways  meet,  out  of  which 
the  two  roads  lead,  one  to  the  islands  of  the  blessed 
and  the  other  to  Tartarus. 

From  the  tale  Socrates  proceeds  to  draw  infer¬ 
ences,  precisely  as  a  divine  reasons  from  a  passage 
of  Scripture.  The  myth,  indeed,  is  Scripture. 
“  Death,  if  I  am  right,  is  in  the  first  place  the  separa¬ 
tion  from  one  another  of  two  things,  soul  and  body, 
nothing  else.  And  after  they  are  separated  they 
retain  their  several  characteristics,  which  are  much 
the  same  as  in  life;  the  body  has  the  same  nature 
and  ways  and  affections,  all  clearly  discernible; 
for  example,  he  who  by  nature  or  training,  or  both, 
was  a  tall  man  while  he  was  alive  will  remain  as  he 
was  after  he  is  dead,  and  the  fat  man  will  remain 
fat,  and  so  on;  and  the  dead  man  who  in  life  had  a 
fancy  to  have  flowing  hair  will  have  flowing  hair. 
And  if  he  was  marked  with  the  whip  and  had  the 
prints  of  the  scourge  or  of  wounds  in  him  when  he 
was  alive,  you  might  see  the  same  in  the  dead  body, 
and  if  his  limbs  were  broken  or  misshapen  when  he 
was  alive,  the  same  appearance  would  be  visible  in 
the  dead.  ...  I  should  imagine  that  this  is  equally 
true  of  the  soul,  Callicles;  when  a  man  is  stripped  of 
the  body  all  the  natural  or  acquired  affections  of  the 
soul  are  laid  open  to  view.  When  they  come  to  the 
judge,  as  those  from  Asia  come  to  Rhadamanthus, 
he  places  them  near  him,  and  inspects  them  quite 


4 


GREAT  ISSUES 


impartially,  not  knowing  whose  the  soul  is;  perhaps 
he  may  lay  hands  on  the  soul  of  the  Great  King,  or 
of  some  other  king  or  potentate,  who  has  no  sound¬ 
ness  in  him,  but  his  soul  is  marked  with  the  whip 
and  is  full  of  the  prints  and  scars  of  perjuries  and 
crimes  with  which  each  action  has  stained  him,  and 
he  is  all  crooked  with  falsehood  and  imposture,  and 
has  no  straightness,  because  he  has  lived  without 
truth.  Him  Rhadamanthus  beholds,  full  of  all 
deformity  and  disproportion,  which  is  caused  by 
licence  and  luxury  and  insolence  and  incontinence,  and 
despatches  him  ignominiously  to  his  prison,  and  there 
he  undergoes  the  punishment  which  he  deserves.” 

Some  of  the  stained,  distorted  souls  are  curable; 
“they  are  improved,  as  in  this  world  so  also  in  an¬ 
other,  by  pain  and  suffering;  for  there  is  no  other 
way  in  which  they  can  be  delivered  from  their  evil.” 
Others  are  incurable,  but  they  serve  as  deterrents; 
“  there  they  are  hanging  up  as  examples,  in  the  prison- 
house  of  the  world  below,  a  spectacle  and  a  warning 
to  all  unrighteous  men  who  come  thither.” 

On  the  other  hand,  the  judge  “looks  with  ad¬ 
miration  on  the  soul  of  some  just  one  who  has  lived 
in  holiness  and  truth,”  and  sends  him  to  the  islands 
of  the  blessed. 

“Now  I,  Callicles,”  says  Socrates,  “am  persuaded 
of  the  truth  of  these  things,  and  I  consider  how  I 
shall  present  my  soul  whole  and  undefiled  before  the 
judge  in  that  day.  Renouncing  the  honours  at  which 
the  world  aims,  I  desire  only  to  know  the  truth,  and 


MYTHS 


5 


to  live  as  well  as  I  can  and,  when  the  time  comes, 
to  die.”  And  then  he  adds:  “ Perhaps  this  may 
appear  to  you  to  be  only  an  old  wife’s  tale,  which 
you  will  contemn.  And  there  might  be  reason  in 
your  contemning  such  tales,  if  by  searching  we  could 
find  out  anything  better  or  truer.” 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  no  discourtesy  need 
be  intended  if  a  narrative  or  a  piece  of  literature  is 
described  as  mythical.  Such  a  judgment  might  mean 
that  it  is  only  an  old  wife’s  tale,  which  can  be  told 
and  heard,  only  for  a  child’s  pastime;  but  it  may 
mean  that  in  this  way  the  truth  is  conveyed  by  and 
for  the  wisest  and  most  mature  of  human  minds, 
because  the  nature  of  the  truth  is  such  that  it  cannot 
be  otherwise  expressed,  or  even  suggested,  to  hearer 
or  reader.  One,  for  example,  who  has  not  reflected 
on  this  fact  might  be  inclined  to  dismiss  the  story 
of  Adam  and  Eve  as  incredible  because  it  is  a  myth 
or  another  who  has  not  reflected  might  resent  the 
charge  that  it  is  a  myth  as  a  disparagement.  But 
suppose  the  matter  in  hand  is  such  as  cannot  be 
conveyed  in  any  better  form  than  that  of  a  myth, 
and  suppose  the  myth  brings  home  to  men,  even 
to-day,  the  most  and  best  that  we  can  know  about 
human  freedom,  and  sin,  and  redemption,  in  that 
case  the  firmest  believer  will  welcome  the  myth. 
The  question  about  the  story  is  not,  Is  it  true  ?  but, 
Does  it  convey  truth?  The  origin  of  evil  is  a  prob 
lem  which  has  never  been  solved.  But  men  are 
engaged  in  a  conflict  with  evil,  sometimes  suffering 


6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


under  defeat,  sometimes  rejoicing  in  the  sense  of 
victory.  They  ask  eagerly  the  why  and  the  where¬ 
fore.  They  feel  the  necessity  of  some  interpretation 
in  order  to  fight  successfully.  How  does  the  myth 
of  the  Garden  of  Eden  serve  us?  As  history  it 
would  seem  to  break  down.  No  reasoning  can  rep¬ 
resent  the  sin  of  Adam  as  a  sufficient  cause  of  all 
human  sin.  Milton’s  heroic  effort  to  tell  the  story 
of  the  fall, 

“To  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,” 

does  not  convince  the  reason.  The  splendour  of 
the  poetry  carries  the  mind  away  in  another  direction, 
and  “Paradise  Lost”  becomes  one  of  the  transcen¬ 
dent  creations  of  the  human  intellect.  But  no  truer, 
no  more  reasonable,  appears  the  suggestion  that 
because  an  innocent  and  ignorant  woman  was  per¬ 
suaded  by  a  subtle  serpent  to  eat  the  fruit  which  was 
forbidden,  the  whole  progeny  of  Adam,  to  the  re¬ 
motest  generations,  was  involved  in  guilt  which 
merits  death  and  eternal  pain.  Milton  still  believed 
he  was  answering  a  theological  problem  by  his  argu¬ 
ment.  St.  Augustine  found  no  difficulty  in  the  theory. 
We  hesitate  to  say  whether  St.  Paul  believed  it 
or  meant  it,  for  his  mind  was  soaked  in  the  rabbin- 
ical  symbolism;  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that 
he,  like  the  best  of  the  Rabbis,  knew  that  the  story 
of  Paradise  was  a  myth  to  be  interpreted,  and  not  a 
fact  on  which  to  build  a  doubtful  scheme  of  human 
sin  and  redemption. 


MYTHS 


7 


But  whatever  Milton  or  St.  Augustine  believed, 
we  to-day  can  never,  except  under  the  coercion  of  a 
dogmatic  authority  which  we  are  afraid  to  question, 
seriously  hold  that  the  sins  of  mankind  are  due  to 
the  sin  of  a  primal  parent ;  still  less  can  we  hold  that 
the  sin  recorded  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  errors 
and  the  travails  of  the  whole  race. 

So  far  as  the  story  of  Eden  was  mistaken  for 
historical  fact,  and  in  that  sense  incorporated  in 
theological  dogma,  we  must  welcome  the  assaults 
of  doubt  and  infidelity  which  have  poured  ridicule 
upon  it.  Interpreted  in  that  way,  it  not  only  fails 
to  explain  human  sin,  but  it  libels,  and  even  cari¬ 
catures,  God.  To  say  that  we  are  born  in  sin  be¬ 
cause  Eve  transgressed  in  Paradise,  and  that  God 
has  condemned  us  on  the  ground  of  that  transgres¬ 
sion,  is  to  confuse  every  judgment,  moral  and  theo¬ 
logical.  How  can  the  conscience  work  if  it  is  led 
into  the  false  position  that  the  fault  of  a  distant  an¬ 
cestor  lies  at  its  door?  The  first  condition  of  a 
healthy  working  of  the  conscience  is  to  feel  the  re¬ 
sponsibility  for  what  we  have  done  or  left  undone 
ourselves,  and  to  be  assured  that  for  this  alone  we 
are  to  give  account.  How  can  we  understand  or 
love  or  obey  God  if  we  are  to  suppose  that  the  basis 
of  His  dealings  with  men  is  an  injustice,  an  arbi¬ 
trary  decree  which  causes  generations  of  helpless 
beings  to  spring  out  of  one  mother,  all  tainted,  cor¬ 
rupted,  enfeebled,  by  her  distant,  and  not  very 
heinous,  sin?  The  God  who  sanctioned  that  doc- 


8 


GREAT  ISSUES 


trine  of  original  sin  was  not,  and  could  not  be,  be¬ 
nevolent,  just,  or  moral.  Men  cannot  attribute  such 
a  thought  to  God  without  seriously  injuring  them¬ 
selves.  They  cannot  set  up  arbitrary  injustice  on 
the  throne  of  the  universe  as  the  object  of  devotion 
and  worship  without  warping  their  own  judgment 
and  hardening  their  own  heart. 

But  to  sweep  away  the  story  of  Eden  on  such  theo¬ 
logical  grounds  is  as  misguided  as  to  retain  it  in  that 
misapplied  sense.  Apart  from  dogmatic  prepos¬ 
session,  any  candid  reader  of  Genesis  to-day  would 
recognize  at  once  that  the  story  is  a  myth,  and  must 
be  used  and  interpreted  as  a  myth.  It  cannot  be 
said  to  claim  attention  on  any  other  ground.  The 
writer  is  as  well  aware  of  the  nature  of  his  story  as 
Plato  was  in  the  myth  at  the  end  of  the  “  Gorgias.” 
When  he  connects  knowledge  and  the  opening  of 
the  eyes  with  the  eating  of  a  certain  fruit,  he  avows 
that  he  is  speaking  in  allegory.  He  is  not  so  childish 
as  to  suppose  that  any  vegetable  product  that  ever 
grew  on  earth  could  generate  our  moral  nature  or 
endow  us  with  eternal  life.  When  the  serpent  talks 
the  writer  assumes,  as  H£sop  did,  that  the  reader  will 
at  once  recognize  the  symbolical  character  of  his 
story.  When  God  and  the  serpent  and  the  woman 
are  represented  in  conversation  the  writer  of  that 
richly  significant  passage  would  be  horrified  if  he 
thought  that  any  one  could  be  childish  enough  to 
take  him  literally.  He,  like  Plato,  weaves  a  myth, 
perhaps  repeats  an  ancient  story,  breathing  into  it 


MYTHS 


9 


a  truer  and  more  spiritual  meaning.  He  conveys 
the  truth  in  a  myth  because  he  has  no  other  vehicle 
in  which  to  convey  it.  Have  we  to  this  day  any 
other,  or  at  least  any  better,  vehicle  in  which  to  tell 
the  meaning  of  man’s  moral  conflict,  its  origin  and 
its  issue? 

“There  might  be  reason  in  our  contemning  such 
tales  if  by  searching  we  could  find  out  anything 
better  or  truer.” 

But  let  us  take  it  as,  what  it  is,  a  myth,  and  the 
story  of  Adam  —  or  man  —  and  of  Eve  —  or  life 
—  becomes  not  only  rich  in  meaning,  but  the  best 
and  the  fullest  truth  that  we  have  yet  discovered  on 
the  subject  of  that  mysterious  disorder,  or  disloca¬ 
tion,  in  the  relation  between  God  and  man,  which 
it  is  the  object  of  human  life  to  overcome.  The 
myth  is  told  so  faultlessly  in  Genesis  iii.  that  it  seems 
presumptuous  to  retell  it.  But  in  order  to  bring 
out  its  character  and  its  truth  it  may  serve  a  purpose 
to  clothe  it  in  slightly  different  dress,  not  better,  but 
more  in  the  fashion  of  our  time.  What  is  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  our  moral  nature,  and  of  the  struggle,  which 
goes  on  continually  within  us,  between  good  and  evil  ? 
Is  the  struggle  intelligible  ?  Has  it  an  origin  and  an 
issue?  We  can  partly  trace  our  relation  in  it  to 
our  fellow-men,  because  the  good  is  largely  that 
which  benefits  them  and  the  bad  is  almost  wholly 
what  injures  them.  But  what  is  our  relation  in 
this  lifelong  struggle  to  powers  beyond  humanity? 
Are  other  intelligences  concerned  with  our  victory 


IO 


GREAT  ISSUES 


or  defeat?  Are  we  assaulted  or  aided  by  them? 
Is  the  whole  situation  —  human  life  as  a  conflict,  a 
moral  development  —  of  value  or  despicable  ?  Is 
the  interpretation  optimistic  or  pessimistic?  Is 
Leibnitz  or  is  Nietzsche  right  ?  It  is  to  these  essen¬ 
tial,  important,  and  perennial  questions  that  the 
myth  gives  an  answer,  the  best  answer  that  we  have 
yet  been  able  to  obtain  or  to  surmise. 

There  was,  we  suppose,  at  the  beginning  the 
beast-nature,  the  serpent,  that  degree  of  wisdom 
which  comes  to  us  as  the  crown  of  the  brute  crea¬ 
tion.  The  moral  nature  was  not  yet;  we  lived  the 
life  of  unconscious  animals.  But  the  serpent  im¬ 
pels  us  to  make  trial  of  right  and  wrong.  We  are 
driven  to  the  fateful  beginnings  of  the  moral  life. 
An  instinct  in  us  tells  us  that  in  this  way  alone  we 
come  into  conscious  relation  with  God.  When  the 
woman  dared  to  eat  the  fateful  fruit,  and  to  become 
the  mother  of  a  race  engaged  in  the  moral  struggle, 
the  myth  suggests  that  she  violated  the  will  of  God. 
Did  God  design  for  men  the  unmoral  lives  of  the 
lower  creatures  —  that  sinless,  thoughtless  rhythm 
between  life  and  death  which  Walt  Whitman  ad¬ 
mired  in  the  brutes  ?  Did  He  wish  men,  too,  not  to 
mourn  for  their  sins  or  sigh  with  regrets  and  aspira¬ 
tions  ?  Here  is  the  limitation  of  the  myth,  or  rather 
the  insoluble  riddle  of  the  stuff  which  the  myth  is 
trying  to  present.  God  meant  man  to  have  the 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil;  He  meant  him  to  de¬ 
velop  a  moral  life.  And  yet,  this  is  the  mystery  of 


MYTHS 


II 


life,  we  enter  upon  that  higher  existence  by  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  evil  rather  than  of  good.  Good  emerges 
first  as  the  victory  over  evil.  It  is  by  an  act  of  dis¬ 
obedience,  not  by  an  act  of  obedience,  that  we  begin 
our  genuinely  human  existence. 

Here  the  myth,  however  mysterious,  is  more 
accurate  than  the  most  careful  analysis  which 
ethics  can  offer. 

Consequently,  the  moral  life  begins  in  shame 
and  the  sense  of  nakedness.  God  comes  upon  us, 
in  infancy,  and  always,  as  the  voice  walking  in  the 
garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  It  is  an  accusation 
and  a  judgment.  Instinctively  we  try  to  shift  the 
blame  to  the  woman,  and  she  to  the  serpent.  But 
conscience  disallows  the  excuses.  The  guilt  is 
distributed,  none  escapes  his  share. 

So  far  the  myth  presents  in  picturesque  swiftness 
of  detail  the  mystery  of  our  moral  life  and  relates  it 
to  God.  The  conscience  is  explained  as  the  voice 
of  God  in  the  soul.  The  Fall  is  the  assertion  of  the 
soul’s  independence  of  God.  But  the  truth  is  car¬ 
ried  on  into  the  explanation  of  human  life  and  of  its 
issue.  As  moral  beings  we  shall  gain  the  goal  only 
by  toil  and  conflict.  There  is  no  return  to  the  earthly 
Paradise  of  unn loral  innocence.  “The  flame  of  a 
sword  which  turns  every  way”  forbids  that  easy, 
but  useless,  solution  of  the  problem  of  human  life. 
Man,  every  man,  enters  upon  a  career  of  achieve¬ 
ment.  The  serpent  in  him  is  condemned  to  sub¬ 
ordination  and  defeat.  Birth  is  to  be  difficult  and 


12 


GREAT  ISSUES 


sorrowful.  The  man  that  is  born  of  the  woman  is  to 
work.  In  the  sweat  of  his  brow  his  earthly  life 
is  to  be  lived  and  his  destiny  is  to  be  worked  out. 
This  is  all  good.  The  subjugated  serpent,  the  pain¬ 
ful  joys  of  motherhood,  the  strenuous  work  for  man, 
this  is  the  lot  of  humanity  when  at  last  it  has  entered 
upon  its  moral  conflict.  Nor  is  Adam  or  Eve  re¬ 
moved  from  the  thoughtful  care  of  God;  He  made 
for  them  “coats  of  skin  and  clothed  them.” 

Thus  the  myth  interprets  human  life,  the  life 
we  are  called  upon  to  live  in  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil.  What  more  can  be  said  than  is  here  said 
once  for  all  ?  No  investigation  of  our  moral  nature 
carries  us  farther  back ;  and  any  theory  which  leaves 
God  out  fails  to  carry  us  as  far.  The  decisions  of 
the  conscience,  the  struggle  for  right  against  wrong, 
the  suffusion  of  the  human  life  of  pain  and  toil  with 
the  thought  of  a  moral  conflict,  and  of  a  goal  to  reach, 
are  only  justified  in  the  last  resort  by  faith  in  God, 
who  ordains  and  watches  the  whole.  The  essential 
truth  is  carried  home,  embodied  in  this  tale.  As 
history  it  would  be  confusing  and  misleading;  as  a 
myth  it  is  inspired,  it  is  divine,  the  thought  of  God 
communicated  to  the  intelligence  of  man. 

Sometimes  the  myth  is  not  so  much  the  expression 
of  the  ineffable,  which  baffles  other  modes  of  com¬ 
munication,  as  the  description  of  a  large  and  general 
truth  in  a  compressed  or  individualized  tale.  For 
example,  the  mediaeval  mode  of  delineating  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  Judaism  to  Christianity,  the  life  and  destiny 


MYTHS 


I3 


of  the  Jewish  people,  and  their  actual  place  in  the 
society  of  the  time,  is  to  construct,  perhaps  uncon¬ 
sciously,  the  myth  of  the  Wandering  Jew.  We  could 
not  for  a  moment  think  of  such  a  person  living  on 
from  age  to  age,  appearing  in  countries  near  and 
distant.  Treated  literally,  it  is  an  idle  tale.  But 
as  a  myth  it  is  truth.  Even  the  article  in  the  “En¬ 
cyclopaedia  Britannica”  on  the  Jews  is  not  more 
instructive  than  this  symbolic  story  which  Matthew 
Paris  copied  from  the  chronicles  of  St.  Albans.  In 
the  year  1228  “a  certain  Archbishop  of  Armenia 
Major  came  on  a  pilgrimage  to  England  to  see  the 
relics  of  the  saints  and  visit  the  sacred  places  in  the 
kingdom,  as  he  had  done  in  others;  he  also  pro¬ 
duced  letters  of  recommendation  from  his  holiness 
the  Pope  to  the  religious  men  and  prelates  of  the 
churches.”  He  went  to  St.  Albans  and  remained 
some  days  to  rest  himself.  In  conversation  with  the 
brothers  he  was  asked  if  he  had  seen  or  heard  any¬ 
thing  of  Joseph  who  had  been  living  when  our  Lord 
suffered  and  was  still  alive.  A  knight  in  the  retinue 
of  the  Archbishop  replied  in  French:  “My  lord 
well  knows  that  man,  and  a  little  before  he  took  his 
way  to  the  Western  countries  the  said  Joseph  ate. 
at  the  table  of  my  lord  the  Archbishop  in  Armenia, 
and  he  had  often  seen  and  held  converse  with  him.” 
What  had  passed  between  Christ  and  the  same 
Joseph  was  this:  When  the  Jews  were  dragging 
Jesus  forth  from  the  judgment-hall,  “  Cartaphilus, 
a  porter  in  Pilate’s  service,  as  Jesus  was  going  out 


14 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  door,  impiously  struck  Him  on  the  back  with 
his  hand,  and  said  in  mockery,  ‘Go  quicker,  Jesus, 
go  quicker;  why  do  you  loiter?’  And  Jesus,  look¬ 
ing  back  on  him  with  a  severe  countenance,  said  to 
him,  ‘I  am  going  and  you  will  wait  for  My  return.’ 
And,  according  as  our  Lord  said,  this  Cartaphilus  is 
still  awaiting  His  return.  At  the  time  of  our  Lord’s 
suffering  he  was  thirty  years  old,  and  when  he  attains 
the  age  of  a  hundred  years  he  always  returns  to  the 
same  age  as  he  was  when  our  Lord  suffered.  After 
Christ’s  death,  when  the  Catholic  faith  gained 
ground,  this  Cartaphilus  was  baptized  by  Ananias 
(who  also  baptized  the  Apostle  Paul) ,  and  was  called 
Joseph.  ...  He  is  a  man  of  holy  conversation 
and  religious;  a  man  of  few  words  and  circumspect 
in  his  behaviour;  for  he  does  not  speak  at  all  unless 
when  questioned  by  the  bishops  and  religious  men, 
and  then  he  tells  of  the  events  of  old  times.  .  .  . 
And  all  he  relates  without  smiling  or  levity  of  con¬ 
versation,  as  one  who  is  well  practised  in  sorrow 
and  the  fear  of  God,  always  looking  forward  with 
fear  to  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ,  lest  at  the  Last 
Judgment  he  should  find  Him  in  anger  whom, 
when  on  His  way  to  death,  he  had  provoked  to  just 
vengeance.  Numbers  came  to  him  from  different 
parts  of  the  world,  enjoying  his  society  and  conversa¬ 
tion;  and  to  them,  if  they  were  men  of  authority, 
he  explained  all  doubts  on  the  matters  on  which  he 
was  questioned.  He  refuses  all  gifts  that  are  offered 
to  him,  being  content  with  slight  food  and  clothing. 


MYTHS 


He  places  his  hope  of  salvation  on  the  fact  that 
he  sinned  through  ignorance,  for  the  Lord  when 
suffering  prayed  for  His  enemies  in  these  words, 
‘  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do.’” 

The  legend  assumes  many  forms  in  the  process 
of  time,  as  the  reader  may  see,  if  he  chooses,  in 
Mr.  Baring-Gould’s  “Curious  Myths  of  the  Middle 
Ages,”  but  seldom  or  never  does  it  depart  from  es¬ 
sential  veracity.  It  follows  with  careful  accuracy, 
under  the  form  of  a  single  wanderer,  the  fate  of  that 
wandering  race  out  of  which  Christ  came,  and  which 
is  to  wait  for  His  return.  It  shows  how  this  race 
on  its  converted  side  became  the  apostle  of  Christian¬ 
ity,  and  on  its  unconverted  side  must  continue  always 
the  most  remarkable,  though  unwilling,  testimony 
to  the  Christian  verities. 

A  fact  so  wide  and  fluctuating  as  the  history  of 
the  Jews,  a  people  without  a  country,  yet  always 
retaining  a  spiritual  nationality,  a  people  appearing 
in  all  Christian  countries,  yet  not  Christian,  playing 
a  remarkable  part,  in  persecution  or  in  liberty,  pro¬ 
ducing  men  of  the  most  varied  and  surprising 
genius  1  —  such  a  fact  is  hard  to  record  in  its  shifting 
and  scattered  details.  But  that  fact  is,  for  practi¬ 
cal  purposes,  sufficiently  characterized  and  stamped 

1  Mr.  Zangwill’s  “Children  of  the  Ghetto”  sets  in  a  brilliant 
light  the  types  of  men  that  Judaism  produces.  Dr.  Schechter’s 
“Studies  in  Judaism”  (A.  &  C.  Black)  adds  to  the  store  which 
the  novelist  has  given  us. 


i6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


upon  the  popular  mind  by  the  legend  of  the  Wan¬ 
dering  Jew. 

Half  a  century  ago  Christendom  was  greatly 
disturbed  by  Strauss’  “Life  of  Christ.”  The  argu¬ 
ment  of  the  book  transformed  the  fact  on  which 
Christianity  was  supposed  to  rest  into  a  myth. 
The  solid  foundation  of  religion  seemed  to  crumble 
away.  The  book  was  so  serious,  so  reasonable, 
so  plausible,  that  for  a  time  the  thinking  world 
regarded  the  story  of  Christ  as  a  mythical  creation  of 
a  credulous  company  of  enthusiasts.  And  in  the 
opinion  of  many  Christianity  was  ipso  facto  dis¬ 
solved.  The  echoes  of  Strauss’  revolutionary  theory 
are  still  heard  among  the  less  informed  opponents  of 
the  Christian  faith;  but  the  careful  discussion  of  the 
theory  has  resulted  in  its  almost  complete  rejection. 
A  myth  takes  time  to  grow,  and  it  demands  certain 
conditions  in  the  minds  of  those  among  whom  it 
grows.  A  myth  is  not  formed  about  contemporary 
persons  and  events,  nor  does  it  grow  up  in  an  active 
and  aggressive  movement  of  thought.  Renan,  in 
his  oration  on  Lesseps,  made  a  fine  apostrophe  which 
well  embodies  this  truth:  “You  were  born,”  he 
exclaimed,  “to  pierce  isthmuses,  and  in  earlier  times 
you  would  have  become  a  myth.”  That  is  the  point : 
a  person  must  lie  in  a  distant  past  to  become  mythical ; 
and  the  story  must  shape  itself  in  a  long  lapse  of 
time,  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  naive  and 
uncritical  people.  The  myth,  in  a  word,  has  its 
natural  history,  and  we  are  not  entitled  to  demand 


MYTHS 


17 


a  miracle  for  its  production.  On  investigation 
Strauss’  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Christian  religion 
did  not  stand  the  test.  The  myth,  if  myth  it  was, 
had  sprung  up  in  the  minds  of  men,  like  Paul,  who 
were  actually  contemporaries  of  Jesus.  There  was 
no  mist  of  distance  in  which  the  figure  could  assume 
mythical  proportions.  When  Paul  referred  to  the 
resurrection  he  spoke  of  numbers  of  persons  still 
living  who  had  seen  the  risen  Christ.  And  even  if 
there  had  been  longer  time,  if,  which  is  impossible, 
the  New  Testament  literature  could  all  be  moved 
into  the  second  century,  and  a  good  hundred  years 
could  be  interposed  between  the  presumed  life  and 
the  construction  of  the  story,  still  the  ceaseless 
activity  and  strenuous  onrush  which  founded  the 
Churches  and  shaped  the  thought  of  the  early  Chris¬ 
tian  community  do  not  afford  the  conditions  in 
which  a  myth  can  grow.  Granted  that  legends 
might  accumulate  around  the  name  of  Jesus,  as 
they  undoubtedly  did,  yet  the  central  fact,  the  Person, 
could  not  be  a  myth.  But  the  question  of  interest 
in  the  present  connection  is  whether  the  thought  of 
fifty  years  ago  was  right  in  assuming  that  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  would  have  melted  away,  or  ought  to 
have  melted  away,  if  Strauss’  view  had  been  con¬ 
firmed. 

Let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  Gospel 
narrative  was  mythical,  and  that  Jesus  Himself  was 
a  creation  of  the  mythopceic  faculty  which  resides 
in  human  nature.  We  will  assume,  as  Strauss  did, 


c 


i8 


GREAT  ISSUES 


that  the  figure  and  the  events  were  constructed, 
with  a  free  poetic  licence,  out  of  the  stories  and  fore¬ 
casts  of  the  Old  Testament  or  the  current  facts  and 
fancies  of  the  time.  It  will  sound  to  some  an  absurd, 
and  to  others  an  impious,  assumption.  But  let  us 
exercise  forbearance  and  make  it.  There  never  was 
a  Jesus ;  the  words  in  His  mouth  and  the  deeds  which 
came  from  His  hands  are  merely  the  creation  of  the 
popular  imagination.  The  death  and  resurrection 
are  not  facts,  but  ideas  clothed  in  the  vivid  colours 
of  a  story,  “truth  embodied  in  a  tale.” 

Nothing,  of  course,  is  more  certain  than  that 
Christianity,  as  a  historic  religion,  actually  grew 
out  of  this  supposed  myth.  Was  it  not  justified  in 
growing  out  of  it  ?  Did  not  the  myth  afford  a  suffi¬ 
cient  seed  of  truth  to  produce  a  religion,  and  a  true 
religion?  Let  us  look  at  it  for  a  moment.  First  of 
all  there  are  the  moral  teachings  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Jesus,  the  ideas  and  suggestions,  for  example, 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  This  body  of  teaching, 
as  Wendt  has  exhaustively  shown,  is  so  coherent,  so 
convincing,  so  essentially  true,  that  it  stands  by  its 
own  weight;  it  requires  no  further  evidence.  The 
central  principle  makes  the  spring  of  all  morality 
love  to  God  and  to  man.  Morality  is  distinguished 
from  external  ceremonies  and  obligations ;  it  is  sought 
and  found  in  the  inward  state  of  the  soul.  The 
type  of  character  commended  is  gentle,  patient, 
merciful,  pure,  beneficent.  This  morality  is  iden¬ 
tified  with  religion. 


MYTHS 


19 


Secondly,  God  is  presented  as  a  pure  and  holy 
Spirit,  siding  with,  approving  of,  the  right  morality 

—  demanding  it,  indeed,  as  the  only  acceptable  ser¬ 
vice  or  worship  which  man  can  render  to  Him. 
Attention  is  directed  to  the  Spirit  of  God  that  wit¬ 
nesses  in  the  human  heart  to  God,  and  prayer  is 
enjoined,  real  and  heartfelt  prayer,  as  the  means 
by  which  God  and  man  communicate. 

Lastly,  the  character  and  conduct  of  Jesus  are 
drawn  to  illustrate  these  teachings.  He  is  such  an 
One  as  the  teaching  commends.  He  embodies  the 
precepts  in  Himself.  He  lives  just  such  a  life  as  one 
would  live  who  believed  that  God  is  such  as  He 
taught.  In  Him  religion  ceases  to  be  connected 
with  a  cultus,  or  a  ritual,  a  temple,  a  holy  place,  a 
system,  an  organization  of  priests;  it  becomes  a  life, 
an  inward  life,  expressing  itself  in  holy  activities 

—  a  brave,  self-sacrificing  life,  moving  without  hesi¬ 
tation  to  the  death  incurred  by  its  fidelity.  Thus  the 
death  assumes  a  special  significance;  it  is  the  death 
which  faultless  benevolence  and  beneficence  and 
obedience  to  God  incur  at  the  hands  of  men,  even  of 
men  religious  in  the  older  and  darker  meaning  of 
the  word  “religion.”  The  resurrection  is  added  as 
God’s  protest  against  the  mistake  of  men;  for  such 
an  one  it  was  not  possible  that  death  should  be  the 
final  issue. 

This  is  the  outline  of  what  is  embodied  in  this 
presumed  myth.  The  myth,  therefore,  conveys 
a  body  of  truth,  ethical  and  religious,  which  is  of 


20 


GREAT  ISSUES 


priceless  moment  to  mankind.  Would  it  be  right 
or  reasonable  to  forfeit  that  truth  because  it  had 
reached  us  in  a  mythical  form  ?  Would  it  not  rather 
be  the  duty  of  mankind  to  take  the  truth,  and  to  live 
on  it,  to  work  it  out  in  life  and  conduct,  thanking 
God  who  had  conveyed  it  to  them  in  such  a  way, 
and  honouring  with  perpetual  wonder  and  reverence 
those  unknown  benefactors  who  had  constructed,  for 
the  good  of  the  race,  this  myth  of  the  true  morality 
and  the  true  religion? 

But,  as  is  now  generally  agreed,  the  mythical  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  Gospels  cannot  stand.  With  the 
progress  of  inquiry  the  historic  fact  of  Christ  settles 
back  again  more  firmly  on  its  foundation.  We  no 
longer  attach  a  superstitious  infallibility  to  the  docu¬ 
ments.  No  one  now  asks  us  to  believe  that  the  gospel 
narratives  were  guaranteed  against  error  or  super- 
naturally  sifted  from  all  admixture  of  legend.  But 
just  in  proportion  as  a  free  historic  light  plays  about 
the  sources  the  conviction  grows  that  the  sources  are 
essentially  historic.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  lived  and 
died.  We  do  not  know  all  about  Him,  nor  anything 
that  approaches  to  all,  as  the  closing  words  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  admit.  But  the  Gospels  are  the 
memorabilia  of  a  real  person.  They  are  in  all  prob¬ 
ability  the  notes  of  the  earliest  apostolic  preaching, 
which  were  written  down  in  order  to  be  preserved 
when  the  Apostles  themselves  were  passing  away. 
The  earliest  testimonies  of  Papias  and  of  the  Mura- 
torian  Fragment  may  be  absolutely  correct ;  for  tra- 


MYTHS 


21 


dition  is  more  and  more  recognized  to  be  rooted  in 
truth;  that  is  to  say,  Mark’s  Gospel  represents  the 
account  of  Jesus  which  Peter  was  accustomed  to 
give,  Matthew’s  includes  the  recollections  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  which  that  member  of  the  apostolic 
group  recorded,  Luke’s  is  a  compilation  of  the  various 
records  which  were  in  use  during  the  ministry  of 
Paul,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  careful  and  artistic 
digest  of  the  teaching  which  the  beloved  disciple 
was  accustomed  to  give  in  Ephesus  to  the  generation 
following. 

In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  therefore,  the 
Gospels  are  not  mythical,  but  historical;  they  are 
not  an  attempt  to  clothe  an  idea  in  a  concrete  crea¬ 
tion  of  the  imagination,  but  the  honest  and  sufficient 
picture  of  a  Person  who  appears  on  the  plane  of 
history,  the  record  of  such  details  of  His  life  and 
teaching  as  were  in  the  memory  of  His  contempo¬ 
raries  when  a  new  generation  succeeded. 

And  yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  fact  of  Christ, 
this  historic  fact,  may  be  treated  as  a  myth.  This 
is  the  vast  and  honourable  usage  of  the  word  “myth.” 
It  is  the  myth  in  Plato’s  sense,  the  human  medium 
through  which  high  and  difficult  matters,  which 
evade  logic  and  definition,  may  be  conveyed  to  the 
soul. 

Granting  that  the  narrative  of  the  Gospels  is  the 
genuine  record  of  what  happened,  and  that  the  New 
Testament  writings  correctly  interpret  the  events, 
is  not  the  whole  unique  phenomenon  of  the  origin 


22 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  Christian  religion  a  figure,  a  picture,  a  tale, 
in  which  is  bodied  forth  the  thought  of  the  Infinite 
for  man?  Does  it  not  then  for  the  first  time  begin 
to  be  intelligible  when  it  seems  to  be  a  symbol  of  a 
Reality  which  lies  behind,  a  Reality  which  is  not 
easily  conveyed  to  our  human  minds,  a  Reality, 
which,  for  anything  we  know,  could  not  otherwise 
have  been  expressed  at  all? 

St.  Paul  was  conscious  of  this  when  he  tried, 
perhaps  not  with  complete  success,  to  draw  a  parallel 
between  the  first  man,  Adam,  and  the  second  Adam, 
the  Lord  from  heaven.  The  reader  of  Romans 
is  aware  that  the  logic  halts,  that  the  terms  of  the 
antithesis  are  imperfectly  expressed,  that  the  argu¬ 
ment  a  fortiori  does  not  seem  quite  cogent.  But  for 
us  who  understand  more  clearly  what  the  story  of 
Adam  is  it  becomes  possible  to  see  in  St.  Paul’s 
argument  a  richer  meaning.  The  first  Adam  and 
the  Fall  is  a  tale  which  endeavours  to  set  forth  the 
nature  of  human  sin,  and  does  it  with  considerable 
success.  The  second  Adam  is  a  fact  in  the  history 
of  humanity  which  declares  human  redemption.  It 
is  a  fact  which,  as  it  were  by  symbol,  shows  the  bear¬ 
ings  of  life,  the  inner  nature  of  man,  the  goal  to  which 
we  move. 

In  the  person  of  Christ  man  is  presented  occupying 
his  proper  relation  to  God.  Perhaps  the  ultimate 
reason  why  the  fact  of  Christ  is  established  as  real 
and  not  a  free  creation  of  the  fancy  is  that  it  does 
not  seem  conceivable  that  any  skill  could  have  in- 


MYTHS 


23 


vented  a  personality  so  exactly  expressing  this  right 
relation  between  God  and  man.  Every  trait  is 
exhibited  unconsciously.  It  does  not  appear  that 
either  evangelists  or  apostles  were  able  to  sum  up  in 
abstract  terms  either  that  relation  or  the  personality 
of  Jesus.  All  they  could  do  was  to  delineate  Him 
and  to  direct  attention  to  Him.  When  the  Church 
in  the  age  of  the  Councils  endeavoured  to  express 
the  relation  in  exact  psychological  terms,  she  pro¬ 
duced  a  jargon  of  language,  a  variety  of  warring 
opinions,  and  ultimately  a  paradox  of  definition, 
which  so  far  from  improving  on  the  fact  of  Christ 
only  obscures  it.  Nestorian,  Apollinarian,  Euty- 
chian,  Monophysite,  Monothelite,  Sabellian;  the 
shameful  scenes  at  the  Council  of  Ephesus;  the  un¬ 
wholesome  gride  of  dogmatic  formulas,  then  and 
since  —  these  are  the  futile  results  of  attempting  to 
improve  on  the  bare,  but  sufficient,  simplicity  of  the 
fact  of  Christ.  All  that  can  wholesomely  be  said  is : 
Study  the  gospel  narrative  honestly  and  earnestly, 
and  thus  learn  in  the  person  of  Jesus  what  the  rela¬ 
tion  between  God  and  man  ought  to  be. 

In  the  same  phenomenon  the  thought  of  God  for 
man  appeals.  Theology  attempts  to  develop  the 
truth  which  is  given  there  once  for  all.  We  are 
loath  to  say  that  the  efforts  of  theology  have  failed. 
But  theology  is  most  successful  when  it  is  able  to 
carry  the  mind  back  to  the  original  revelation  in  the 
gospel,  and  to  endow  that  revelation  with  its  first 
freshness  and  surprise.  Sometimes  after  strenuous 


24 


GREAT  ISSUES 


study  and  profound  thought  the  student,  if  he  be 
sincere  and  unbiassed,  is  brought,  as  it  were  suddenly 
and  unexpectedly,  face  to  face  with  the  idea  of  God 
which  gives  colour  and  meaning  to  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment.  He  lights  upon  that  ancient  Paradise,  from 
which  man  is  not  expelled;  there  is  a  rustle  of  the 
leaves  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  and  the  waters 
lapse  with  a  tinkling  melody.  The  light  is  visionary 
and  the  heart  is  hushed.  And  there 

“Visibly  through  the  garden  walketh  God.” 

God  is  not  in  the  image  of  man,  but  with  deep 
gratitude  the  seeker  who  has  surprised  the  Divinity 
recognizes  that  man  is  in  the  image  of  God,  and  by 
virtue  of  that  characteristic  is  able  to  apprehend 
Him. 

“Were  not  the  eye  itself  a  sun, 

No  sun  for  it  could  ever  shine; 

By  God  the  heart  could  not  be  won 
Were  not  the  heart  itself  divine.”  1 

There  is  no  form,  no  voice.  Now  more  than  ever 
He  is  spirit,  dwelling  in  light  which  no  man  can 
approach  unto.  The  vision  is  not  as  of  Apollo  or  of 
the  Athene  of  Phidias,  but  as  of  the  image  which 
floated  always  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.  God  is  the 
original  will  that  produced  the  universe;  matter  in 
its  countless  forms  and  mysterious  energies  is  the 
expression  of  the  will;  life  is  imparted  by  the  same 
will;  consciousness  is  the  pulse  of  that  will  within 

1  Plotinus,  “Enneads,”  i.  6. 


MYTHS 


25 


the  limits  of  a  human  soul.  God  is  wisdom  and 
strength,  and  He  loves.  The  Creation  is  the  out¬ 
come  of  a  brooding  tenderness.  The  moral  nature 
within  is  the  revelation  of  the  Being  that  produced 
all  things.  The  good  is  God;  the  evil  is  what  He 
tolerates  as  a  means  of  realizing  the  higher  and  the 
permanent  good.  In  a  word,  this  seeker  with  kin¬ 
dling  eyes  has  come  upon  his  Father,  the  Father  of 
him  and  of  all  men,  the  creative,  brooding  love, 
which  makes  for  perfection  and  unity  and  infinite 
progress.  Yes,  he  has  come,  perhaps  through  geol- 
ogy,  perhaps  through  theology,  back  to  the  truth  of 
Jesus,  the  revelation  which  shone  in  the  tale  of  the 
gospel.  He  has  come  with  the  experience  of  the 
centuries,  with  the  beatings  of  the  human  heart  of 
generations,  with  the  discoveries  of  science,  with  the 
suggestions  of  poetry  and  of  art,  back  to  God,  to  the 
God  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  God  who  loves  and 
forgives,  who  seeks  and  saves,  the  God  who  does  not 
shrink  from  the  cross  nor  despise  the  shame  in  the 
task  of  the  redemption  of  man.  The  truth  of  God 
told  in  the  tale,  the  historic  fact  of  Christianity,  the 
truth  which  made  Christendom,  the  idea  of  progress, 
the  hope  of  eternity,  that  truth  is  verifying  itself 
in  the  whole  history  of  man,  and  is  the  prophecy  of 
the  future.  The  highest  religion  is  drawn  out  of  it, 
the  only  practicable  philosophy  rests  on  it ;  practical 
politics  must  be  determined  by  it;  art  will  fail  as  it 
leaves  it;  science  is  ever  confirming  it. 

That  “truth  embodied  in  a  tale”  is  not  only  a  tale, 


26 


GREAT  ISSUES 


but  a  truth.  Its  vitality  is  inexhaustible.  The 
manifestation  of  an  infinite  God  is  infinite.  Nay, 
not  only  is  the  story  of  Christ  the  effort  of  the  invisible 
God  to  put  into  an  accessible  form  His  thought  of 
love  for  the  world,  but  the  world  itself,  the  whole 
mysterious  cosmos  of  phenomena,  is  a  myth  of  the 
unseen.  It  is  a  tale  that  is  told,  from  the  electron 
upwards  and  onwards  to  the  highest  thought  which 
has  worked  in  the  brain  of  man,  a  tale  which  no  man 
has  yet  told  in  its  entirety  nor  understood  in  its  ful¬ 
ness  — 

“A  tale  divine  of  high  and  passionate  thought 
To  its  own  music  chanted.’, 

For  no  one  can  meditate  on  the  whole  —  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  the  sun  and  the  planets  in  the  incalculable 
“  backward  and  abysm  of  time,”  on  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  earth  and  sky  and  sea,  as  the  pictured 
dwelling-place  of  beings  drawing  thoughtful  breath, 
on  the  deep  significance  of  man’s  religions,  on  the 
pathos  of  the  moral  struggles,  and  the  nameless 
heroisms  of  men  and  women  from  the  beginning  until 
now  —  without  the  awed  sense  that  in  this  way,  in 
this  mighty  drawn-out  myth,  there  is  a  revelation 
going  on,  a  revelation  of  that  which  cannot  be  more 
explicitly  told  to  our  limited  intelligence,  the  revela¬ 
tion  of  God : 


“A  fire  mist  and  a  planet, 
A  crystal  and  a  cell, 


MYTHS 


27 


A  jellyfish  and  a  Saurian, 

And  caves  where  cave  men  dwell; 

Then  a  sense  of  love  and  duty 
And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod: 

Some  call  it  Evolution, 

And  others  call  it  God. 

A  haze  on  the  far  horizon, 

An  infinite  tender  sky, 

The  living  gold  of  the  corn-fields, 

And  the  lark  soaring  up  on  high; 

The  bright  procession  of  flowers 
From  primrose  to  golden-rod: 

Some  call  it  Summer  and  Nature, 

And  others  say  it  is  God. 

The  echo  of  ancient  chanting, 

The  gleam  of  altar-flames; 

The  stones  of  a  hundred  temples 
Graven  with  sacred  names; 

Man’s  patient  quest  for  the  secret 
In  soul,  in  star,  in  sod: 

Some  deem  it  superstition 
And  others  believe  it  is  God. 

A  picket  frozen  on  duty, 

A  mother  starved  for  her  brood, 

Socrates  drinking  the  hemlock, 

And  Jesus  on  the  rood; 

The  millions  who,  humble  and  nameless, 
The  straight,  hard  path  have  trod: 

Some  call  it  consecration, 

And  others  feel  it  is  God. 

Like  the  tide  on  crescent  sea  beach, 
When  the  moon  is  new  and  thin, 


28 


GREAT  ISSUES 


They  come,  our  soul’s  deep  yearnings, 

Welling  and  surging  in, 

They  come  from  the  mystic  ocean 
Whose  rim  no  foot  has  trod: 

Some  hold  it  idle  dreaming, 

We  know  that  it  is  God.” 

—  Professor  Carruth. 


CHAPTER  II 


RELIGION 

“When  I  speak  of  religion,”  says  Parson  Thwac- 
kum,  “I  mean  the  Christian  religion;  and  when  I 
say  Christian  religion  I  mean  the  Protestant  religion ; 
and  when  I  say  Protestant  religion  I  mean  the  Church 
of  England.”  Most  men,  until  they  have  reflected, 
mean  by  religion  their  own  tenets  and  practices,  and 
are  liable  to  refuse  the  name  to  other  tenets  and 
practices,  which  may  yet  be  equally  religious. 

The  easiest  and  simplest  method  of  determining 
the  right  religion  is  to  adopt,  and  to  swear  by,  that 
which  is  established  in  the  country  to  which  you 
belong.  It  is  a  good  way  to  preferment.  Indeed, 
it  is  good  for  everything  in  you,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  character. 

When  in  1788  a  deputation  waited  on  Lord  Chan¬ 
cellor  Thurlow  to  obtain  his  support  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Act  he  listened  civilly, 
and  then  said,  “  Gentlemen,  I’m  against  you.  I  am 
for  the  Established  Church.  Not  that  I  have  any 
more  regard  for  the  Established  Church  than  for 
any  other  Church,  but  because  it  is  established. 
And  if  you  can  get  your  religion  established  I’ll 

29 


30 


GREAT  ISSUES 


be  for  that  too.”  A  principle  of  such  simplicity 
and  advantage  must  commend  itself  to  a  large 
proportion  of  any  community.  But,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  the  simplicity  and  advantage,  it  represents  but  a 
low  degree  of  religion.  It  favours  prejudice,  intol¬ 
erance,  and  that  type  of  character  which  was  ad¬ 
mirably  hit  off  in  Addison’s  essay  on  the  Tory  fox- 
hunter.  This  typical  gentleman  uttered  a  panegyric 
to  Mr.  Spectator  on  his  spaniel:  “But  I  found  the 
most  remarkable  adventure  of  his  life  was  that  he 
had  once  like  to  have  worried  a  dissenting  teacher. 
The  master  could  hardly  sit  on  his  horse  for  laughing 
all  the  while  he  was  giving  me  the  particulars  of  this 
story,  which  I  found  had  mightily  endeared  his  dog 
to  him,  and,  as  he  himself  told  me,  had  made  him 
a  great  favourite  among  all  the  honest  gentlemen  of 
the  country.”  As  they  rode  on  the  way,  “Where  do 
you  intend  to  inn  to-night?”  asks  the  squire.  “I 
can  help  you  to  a  very  good  landlord  if  you  will  go 
along  with  me.  He  is  a  lusty,  jolly  fellow,  that  lives 
well,  at  least  three  yards  in  the  girth,  and  the  best 
Church  of  England  man  upon  the  road.”  Then 
the  narrative  proceeds:  “The  landlord  had  swelled 
his  body  to  a  prodigious  size,  and  worked  up  his 
complexion  to  a  standing  crimson  by  his  zeal  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  Church,  which  he  expressed  every 
hour  of  the  day,  as  his  customers  dropped  in,  by 
repeated  bumpers.  He  had  not  time  to  go  to  church 
himself,  but,  as  my  friend  told  me  in  my  ear,  had 
headed  a  mob  at  the  pulling  down  of  two  or  three 


RELIGION 


31 


meeting-houses.  While  supper  was  preparing  he 
enlarged  upon  the  happiness  of  the  neighbouring 
shire.  ‘For,’  says  he,  ‘there  is  scarce  a  Presbyterian 
in  the  whole  country  except  the  bishop.’  In  short, 
I  found  by  his  discourse  that  he  had  learned  a  great 
deal  of  politics,  but  not  one  word  of  religion,  from 
the  parson  of  his  parish;  and,  indeed,  that  he  had 
scarce  any  other  notion  of  religion  but  that  it  con¬ 
sisted  in  hating  Presbyterians.  I  had  a  remarkable 
instance  of  his  notions  in  this  particular.  Upon 
seeing  a  poor,  decrepit  old  woman  pass  under  the 
window  where  he  sat  he  desired  me  to  take  notice  of 
her,  and  afterwards  informed  me  that  she  was  gen¬ 
erally  reputed  a  witch  by  the  country  people,  but  that, 
for  his  part,  he  was  apt  to  believe  she  was  a  Presby¬ 
terian.” 

But  if  a  State  establishment  of  religion  tends  to 
produce  this  ignorant  kind  of  prejudice,  and  a  reli¬ 
gious  temper  which  is  of  all  things  the  most  irreli¬ 
gious,  the  same  infirmity  is  found  in  every  system, 
or  Church,  or  sect,  in  which  the  idea  is  encouraged 
that  it  is  the  exclusive  possessor  of  the  truth.  The 
Moslem  scorns  the  Christian  infidel  as  the  Jew  once 
scorned  the  Gentile.  The  Orthodox  Russian,  though 
a  saint,  like  Ivan  of  Cronstadt,  regards  with  loathing 
the  Dissenters  from  the  Orthodox  Church.  The 
Roman  Catholic  will  not  even  pray  with  those  who 
are  outside  his  fold.  The  size  of  the  Roman  Com¬ 
munion  tends  to  hide  the  corrosive  influence  of  this 
exclusive  spirit.  But  the  Catholic  regards  the  rest 


32 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  Christian  world  as  the  Tory  fox-hunter  re¬ 
garded  the  Presbyterians.  His  religious  spirit  in¬ 
trinsically  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  narrowest  sec¬ 
tarian,  who,  after  banning  all  the  other  sects  of  Chris¬ 
tendom,  quarrels  with  the  members  of  his  own  sect, 
and  finally  finds  that  there  is  scarce  a  man  within  the 
country  that  he  can  “break  bread  with.”  1 

The  sectarian  spirit,  in  Islam  or  Romanism,  in 
an  Established  Church  or  in  a  minute  and  powerless 
sect,  is  the  disease  of  religion,  the  antithesis  of  it, 
in  many  cases  the  destruction  of  it.  As  was  once 
said  about  the  narrowest  form  of  what  is  called 
Brethrenism,  “it  skims  off  the  cream  of  the  Churches, 
and  turns  it  sour.” 

Religion  is  a  universal  phenomenon.  It  is  the 
differentia  of  man:  for  man  might  be  defined  in 
creation  as  “the  religious  animal.”  If  men  are 
without  religion,  they  are  so  far  forth  not  human. 
It  is  this  universality  which  should  be  first  impressed 

1  A  friend  of  mine  had  a  brother  who  came  to  visit  him  for  a 
Sunday  at  Eastbourne.  “Well,  George,”  he  said,  on  Sunday, 
“will  you  come  to  church  with  me?”  “No,”  he  replied,  “there 
is  a  brother  a  few  miles  out  with  whom  I  shall  break  bread.” 
In  the  evening  George  returned.  “Well,  how  did  you  get  on?” 
was  the  genial  inquiry.  “Pretty  well,”  was  the  doubtful  reply, 
“but  the  Brother,  as  he  sat  down,  said  to  me:  ‘Now  I  wish  you 
to  understand,  that  though  you  break  bread  with  me,  I  do  not 
break  bread  with  you.’” 

This  is  the  same  spirit  as  was  shown  by  Cardinal  Manning 
and  some  other  Roman  clergy,  whom  we  met  in  Christian  con¬ 
ference  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber.  We  all  had  to  withdraw 
into  the  unlighted  chancel  of  the  Abbey  for  the  opening  prayer, 
because  the  Roman  Catholics  would  not  pray  with  us. 


RELIGION 


33 


on  the  mind.  Before  any  question  is  raised  about 
particular  religions  and  the  relative  truth  of  our  own, 
the  point  is  to  be  secured  that  man  from  the  earliest 
records  we  possess  of  him  in  the  Palaeolithic  Age  is 
religious.  Religion,  like  other  things  terrestrial, 
develops.  It  may  be  in  a  backward  or  an  advanced 
stage.  The  ideas  and  practices  may  be  relatively 
good  or  bad.  But  it  is  not  given  to  man  to  be  abso¬ 
lutely  irreligious;  it  is  only  given  to  him  to  choose 
between  the  better  or  the  worse,  between  the  true  or 
the  false  in  religion. 

Not  to  weary  the  reader  with  many  definitions  of 
religion,  let  us  be  content  with  M.  Albert  R6ville’s: 
“Religion  is  the  determination  of  human  life  by 
the  sentiment  of  a  bond  uniting  the  human  mind 
to  that  mysterious  Mind  whose  domination  of  the 
world  and  of  itself  it  recognizes,  and  to  whom  it 
delights  in  feeling  itself  united.”  Man  may  interpret 
that  mysterious  Mind  as  fetich,  as  a  tawdry  doll, 
as  a  human  being,  as  an  unknown  force,  as  the  per¬ 
sonal  God,  sole  and  supreme,  of  Mohammed,  or  as 
the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  the  savage,  the 
Sicilian  peasant,  the  Positivist,  the  Spencerian,  the 
Moslem  or  Jew  or  Unitarian,  or  the  orthodox  Chris¬ 
tian,  are,  each  in  his  own  way,  religious. 

It  may,  however,  be  said  that  there  are  always 
men,  and  now  an  amazing  number,  who  care  and 
think  nothing  of  that  mysterious  Mind,  and  have 
no  desire  to  be  united  with  it.  In  this  sense  surely 
there  are  many  who  are  non-religious.  That  is  very 

D 


34 


GREAT  ISSUES 


doubtful.  Many  live  without  much  thought,  but  di¬ 
rectly  they  think  —  and  all  must  some  time  or  other 
think — they  stumble  into  religion.  Thus  M.  Guyau, 
with  modern  France  before  him,  wrote  a  book  en¬ 
titled  “The  Non-religion  of  the  Future”;  the  object 
of  the  book  is  to  show  how  Catholicism  in  France  is 
dying  and  Protestantism  is  impossible.  All  religious 
dogmas  are  discussed  and  dismissed.  But  does  the 
writer  succeed  in  getting  rid  of  religion  or  in  proving 
that  the  future  will  be  irreligious?  Far  from  it. 
He  finds  that:  “Materialism  leaves  us,  as  other 
systems  do,  in  the  presence  of  that  ultimate  mystery 
which  all  religions  have  symbolized  in  their  myths, 
and  which  metaphysics  will  always  be  obliged  to 
recognize,  and  poetry  to  express,  by  the  instrumental¬ 
ity  of  images. 

“By  the  seaside  stood  a  great  upright  mountain 
that  pierced  the  sky  like  an  arrow-head,  and  the 
waves  beat  upon  its  base.  In  the  morning  when  the 
first  light  of  the  sun  touched  the  ancient  rocks  they 
shivered,  and  a  voice  rose  from  the  grey  stones  and 
mingled  with  the  sound  made  by  the  blue  sea;  and 
mountain  and  wave  conversed  together.  The  sea 
said :  ‘  The  heavens  have  been  mirrored  in  my  shift¬ 
ing  waves  a  million  years,  and  in  all  that  time  have 
held  as  high  aloof  from  me  and  stood  as  motionless.’ 
And  the  mountain  said:  ‘I  have  climbed  towards 
the  heavens  a  million  years,  and  they  are  still  as  high 
above  me  as  ever.’  One  day  a  ray  of  sun  fell  smiling 
upon  the  brow  of  the  mountain,  and  the  mountain 


RELIGION 


35 


questioned  it  on  the  distant  heavens  from  which  it 
came.  The  ray  was  about  to  reply,  but  was  reflected 
suddenly  from  the  mountain  to  the  sea,  and  from  a 
scintillating  wave  back  to  the  heavens  from  which  it 
came.  And  the  ray  is  still  en  route  across  the  Infinite, 
toward  the  Nebulas  of  Meia  in  the  Pleiades,  which 
were  so  long  invisible,  or  toward  some  point  farther 
still,  and  has  not  yet  replied.”  1 

This  does  not  sound  much  like  getting  rid  of  the 
material  of  religion.  And,  indeed,  M.  Guyau  ends 
by  justifying  the  religious  sentiment  as  ultra-scientific 
but  not  anti-scientific,  and  by  adopting  or  approving 
the  philosophical  hypothesis  of  moral  idealism,  as 
it  “affords  unusual  scope  for  the  religious  sentiment, 
freed  from  its  mysticism  and  transcendence.”  The 
book  closes  with  an  eager  argument,  as  if  wrung  from 
the  heart  of  the  writer,  for  the  immortality  of  the 
soul:  “A  man  of  science  was  one  day  holding  a 
handful  of  wheat  that  had  been  found  in  the  tomb 
of  an  Egyptian  mummy.  ‘Five  thousand  years 
without  sight  of  the  sun.  Unhappy  grains  of  wheat, 
as  sterile  as  death,  of  which  they  have  so  long  been 
the  companions;  never  shall  their  tall  stalks  bow 
beneath  the  wind  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  Never? 
What  do  I  know  of  life  or  of  death ?’  As  an  experi¬ 
ment  simply,  without  much  hope  of  success,  the  man 
of  science  sowed  the  grains  of  wheat  that  he  had 
recovered  from  the  tomb,  and  the  wheat  of  the 

1  “The  Non-Religion  of  the  Future,”  by  Marie  Jean  Guyau, 
p.  492. 


36 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Pharaohs  received  the  caress  of  the  sun,  of  the  air, 
and  came  up  green  through  the  soil  of  Egypt  and 
bowed  beneath  the  wind  on  the  banks  of  the  sacred 
and  inexhaustible  flood  of  the  Nile.  And  shall  hu¬ 
man  thought,  and  the  higher  life  which  stirs  in  us  like 
the  germ  in  the  seed,  and  love  that  seems  to  sleep 
for  ever  in  the  tomb,  not  have  this  reawakening  in 
some  unforeseen  springtime,  and  not  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  eternity,  which  seems  at  present  to 
be  buried  once  and  for  all  in  darkness?  What  is 
death,  after  all,  in  the  universe  but  a  lesser  degree 
of  vital  heat,  a  more  or  less  transitory  lowness  of 
temperature?  Death  cannot  be  powerful  enough  to 
hold  life  and  its  perpetual  youth  in  check  and  to 
prevent  the  infinite  activity  of  thought  and  of  desire.” 

Thus  it  may  be  suggested  that  they  who  count  on 
the  disappearance  of  religion  reckon  without  their 
host.  The  impatient  rejection  of  current  religious 
ideas  and  dogmas  is  often  mistaken  for  the  repudia¬ 
tion  of  religion.  The  iconoclasts,  however,  are  break¬ 
ing,  not  the  reality,  but  the  images.  We  see  around 
us  old  religious  ideas  dying,  sometimes  with  a  pa¬ 
thetic  beauty  of  their  own;  for,  as  Lecky  says,  “re¬ 
ligious  ideas  die  like  the  sun ;  their  last  rays,  possess¬ 
ing  but  little  heat,  are  expended  in  giving  beauty.’ ’ 
But  this  passing  of  the  forms  is  far  from  implying 
the  loss  of  the  reality.  A  religion  can  be  superseded, 
but  religion  is  immortal.  As  Tyler  1  forcibly  says : 
“Unless  a  religion  can  hold  its  place  in  the  front  of 


1  “Anthropology,”  ch.  xiv. 


RELIGION 


37 


science  and  morals ,  it  may  only  gradually  in  the  course 
of  ages  lose  its  place  in  the  nation,  but  all  the  power 
of  statecraft  and  all  the  wealth  of  temples  will  not 
save  it  from  eventually  yielding  to  a  belief  that  takes 
in  higher  knowledge  and  teaches  better  life.” 

We  may  deplore  the  decay  of  a  religion,  but  we 
must  not  fall  into  the  error  of  thinking  that  religion 
can  cease.  Human  life  and  its  relation  to  the  Cosmos 
compel  a  desire  to  determine  the  relation  between 
man  and  God,  and  maintain  in  the  heart  of  man 
an  irrepressible  desire  for  union  with  God.  No  one 
was  ever  more  impatient  with  the  current  formulae, 
more  scornful  of  the  delusion  that  the  plan  of  the 
universe  was  “your  Nine-and-Thirty  Articles,” 
than  Carlyle.  His  diatribe  against  Hebrew  old 
clothes  sounded  like  the  knell  of  the  religion  of  his 
time.  But  what  a  mistake  would  it  be  to  charge 
Carlyle  with  indifference  to  religion !  His  voice 
rolls  like  thunder  and  rattles  with  heaven’s  own 
artillery  against  the  deluded  men  who  suppose  that 
they  have  got  rid  of  religion. 

“Enlightened  philosophies,  like  Molikre  doctors, 
will  tell  you:  ‘Enthusiasms,  self-sacrifice,  heaven, 
hell,  and  such  like :  yes,  all  that  was  true  enough  for 
old,  stupid  times ;  all  that  used  to  be  true,  but  we  have 
changed  all  that  —  nous  avons  change  tout  cela !  ’ 
Well,  if  the  heart  be  got  round  now  into  the  right 
side  and  the  liver  into  the  left ;  if  man  have  no  hero¬ 
ism  in  him  deeper  than  the  wish  to  eat,  and  in  his 
soul  there  dwell  now  no  Infinite  of  hope  and  awe, 


3§ 


GREAT  ISSUES 


and  no  divine  silence  can  become  imperative  because 
it  is  not  Sinai  thunder,  and  no  tie  will  bind  it,  if  it  be 
not  that  of  Tyburn  gallows-ropes,  then  verily  you 
have  changed  all  that,  and  for  it  and  for  you  and  for 
me  behold  the  abyss  and  nameless  annihilation  is 
ready.  So  scandalous  a  beggarly  universe  deserves, 
indeed,  nothing  else;  I  cannot  say  I  would  save  it 
from  annihilation.  Vacuum  and  the  serene  blue  will 
be  much  handsomer;  easier,  too,  for  all  of  us. 
I,  for  one,  decline  living  as  a  patent-digester.  Pa¬ 
tent-digester,  spinning-mule,  Mayfair  clothes-horse, 
many  thanks,  but  your  Chaosships  will  have  the 
goodness  to  excuse  me.”  1 

We  may  then,  perhaps,  conclude  that  religion  is 
universal  as  humanity,  that  it  is  not  disposed  of,  nor 
will  ever  be.  Good  or  bad,  true  or  false,  religious 
ideas  and  beliefs  will  possess  the  mind  of  man,  and 
religious  rites,  or  abstention  from  rites,  will  seek  to 
express  the  ideas  and  beliefs.  We  are  bound  to 
religion  as  we  are  bound  to  the  earth  on  which  we 
live;  we  can  escape  it  at  best  but  temporarily  as  an 
aeronaut  can  mount  for  a  time  by  gas  or  the  machin¬ 
ery  of  wings.  But  while  it  is  not  given  to  us  to  es¬ 
cape  the  earth  or  religion,  we  have  much  choice  left 
us.  We  can  live  in  morasses  and  malarial  bogs, 
or  on  mountain  heights.  We  can  herd  in  dirty 
slums,  religiously  speaking,  or  breathe  the  fresh  air 
of  heaven.  We  can,  with  the  sluggard,  yawn,  and 
expect  our  harvest  —  of  weeds  and  thistles ;  or  we 

1  “Past  and  Present,”  bk.  iii.  ch.  ix. 


RELIGION 


39 


can  with  diligence  cultivate  our  plot,  and  produce 
grain  by  which  a  man  can  live,  and  fruit  of  the  trees 
which  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 

Within  the  infrangible  walls  of  destiny  so  much 
liberty  is  ours,  and  this  obvious  obligation  lies  upon 
us :  We  are  on  the  one  hand  bound  to  find  and  prac¬ 
tise  the  truest  and  best  religion  that  is  open  to  us, 
and  on  the  other  hand  bound  to  regard  all  religions, 
howrever  poor  and  imperfect,  with  respect,  never 
permitting  our  religion  to  separate  us  from  men, 
but  always  seeing  in  our  religion  the  instrument 
for  drawing  all  together  in  the  unity  of  God. 

It  is  certainly  one  of  the  quaintest  delusions  of  the 
human  mind  to  suppose  that  religious  life,  goodness, 
godliness  are  confined  to  a  particular  form  of  faith  or 
cultus.  The  latitudinarian  doctrine  that  “the  relh 
gion  of  all  good  men  is  the  same”  comes  far  nearet 
to  the  truth  of  fact.  The  devout  Buddhist  Lama, 
the  Mohammedan  Sufi,  the  mediaeval  mystic,  Wil¬ 
liam  Law,  John  Wesley,  Charles  Gordon  are  curi¬ 
ously  alike.  Seneca  and  Paul  are  not  only  contem¬ 
porary  but  spiritually  related.1  It  is  rightly  reck¬ 
oned  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  Marcus  Aure¬ 
lius  persecuted  those  of  his  subjects  who  were  nearest 
to  his  own  spirit,  and,  though  unconsciously,  con¬ 
formed  most  perfectly  to  his  doctrine.  Christianity 
is  not  so  sharply  marked  off  from  the  religions  of  the 
world  as  dogma  and  exclusiveness  lead  us  to  think. 
Christ  in  this  respect  does  not  agree  with  some  of 

1  Lightfoot,  “Commentary  on  Philippians.” 


40 


GREAT  ISSUES 


His  most  devoted  followers.  In  the  gospel  there  are 
two  people  who  draw  forth  His  admiration  by  their 
faith,  One  of  them  is  a  Roman  centurion,  the  other 
a  Syro-Phcenician  woman  (Matt.  viii.  io,  xv.  28). 
And  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  notwithstanding  the  im¬ 
petuous  temper  of  John,  who  once  would  have 
called  down  fire  from  heaven  on  a  Samaritan  village, 
Jesus  appears  as  drawing  together  in  one  the  children 
of  God  that  were  scattered  abroad,  and  uniting  the 
numerous  folds  of  humanity  in  one  ideal  flock. 

But  if  it  may  appear  too  latitudinarian  to  say  that 
the  religion  of  all  good  men  is  the  same,  there  can 
be  no  hesitation  in  admitting  that  the  religion  of  all 
genuine  Christians  is  the  same,  to  whatever  age  or 
Church  they  may  belong.  Let  us  by  way  of  illustra¬ 
tion  set  side  by  side  the  picture  of  a  pious  merchant 
in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  strongly 
contrasted  picture  of  Russian  Nonconformists  in  our 
own  time,  and  let  us  ask  ourselves  whether  the  dif¬ 
ference  or  the  similarity  is  the  more  striking. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
the  corruptions  of  the  Church  seemed  to  threaten 
its  dissolution  unless  a  Reformation  should  come, 
when  Caesar  Borgia  was  living  the  scandalous  life 
at  Rome  which  made  Alexander  VI.  the  grossest 
outrage  on  Christianity  that  history  records,  Gio¬ 
vanni  Rucellai  was  living  his  life  of  industry  and 
beneficence  at  Florence.  He  employed  Leon  Bat¬ 
tista  Alberti  to  finish  the  marble  facade  of  Sta.  Maria 
Novella,  and  also  to  build  the  Oratorio  S.  Sepulchro, 


RELIGION 


41 


in  imitation  of  the  holy  Sepulchre  at  Jerusalem. 
These  monuments  in  themselves  might  betoken 
nothing  but  the  superstition  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
which  sought  to  atone  to  God  for  the  breach  of  His 
laws  by  building  churches  in  His  honour.  But, 
happily  for  us,  Rucellai  wrote  in  his  later  years  a 
journal,  which  was  published  by  his  sons  Pandolfo 
and  Bernardo  in  grateful  recognition  that  their 
father  was  the  pride  and  glory  of  the  Rucellai  family 
which  he  had  adorned.  Here  is  a  passage  from  the 
journal:  “I  thank  the  Lord  that  He  made  me  a 
reasonable  and  immortal  being  in  a  land  where  the 
true,  the  Christian,  faith  prevails,  near  to  Rome, 
which  is  the  centre  of  this  faith ;  in  Italy,  the  noblest 
and  worthiest  part  of  the  Christian  world;  in  Tus¬ 
cany,  one  of  the  noblest  provinces  of  Italy;  in  the 
city  of  Florence,  to  which  is  given  the  praise  of 
fairest  not  only  in  Christendom  but  in  the  world. 
I  thank  Him  that  He  has  granted  me  a  long  life  with 
perfect  bodily  health,  so  that  I  do  not  remember 
in  the  course  of  sixty  years  a  month  in  which  I  was 
kept  to  the  house;  for  health  is  the  highest  earthly 
grace.  I  thank  Him  that  He  has  vouchsafed  me 
success  in  my  business,  so  that  I  have  risen  from  the 
small  things  with  which  I  began  to  riches  and  general 
esteem,  while  I  have  not  only  acquired  with  honour, 
but  given  proportionately,  which  is  a  greater  gain 
than  acquisition.  I  thank  Him  that  He  appointed 
for  my  earthly  life  a  time  which  by  universal  consent 
must  be  called  the  happiest  for  Florence,  the  time  of 


42 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  illustrious  citizen  Cosmo  de’  Medici,  whose 
fame  in  the  whole  world  finds  no  equal,  a  time  of 
ten  years’  peace  and  undisturbed  tranquillity,  the 
blessings  of  which  have  appeared  the  sweeter  for 
the  heavy  troubles  and  sorrows  which  previous  times 
had  to  bear.  I  thank  Him  for  a  worthy  mother, 
who  at  my  father’s  death  when  I  was  just  nineteen 
rejected  all  proposals  for  a  second  marriage,  and 
lived  only  for  her  children,  to  their  great  comfort, 
also  for  a  not  less  worthy  wife,  whose  love  to  me  was 
combined  with  devoted  care  for  household  and  fam¬ 
ily,  who  was  spared  to  me  for  long  years,  and  whose 
death  was  the  most  sorrowful  loss  which  could  or  can 
befall  me.  While  I  survey  all  these  countless  graces 
and  blessings,  I  detach  myself  now  in  my  old  age 
from  everything  earthly,  in  order  to  praise  Thee  the 
Lord  and  living  Source  of  all,  and  from  my  inner¬ 
most  soul  to  thank  Thee.”  1 

No  one  will  hesitate  to  recognize  in  this  thankful 
and  contented  piety  the  best  type  of  religion,  which 
is  to  be  found  better  in  the  world  than  in  a  cloister, 
in  a  merchant  than  in  a  prince.  The  tendency  to 
look  for  the  types  of  Christianity  in  the  clergy  or  in 
the  extravagances  of  ascetic  renunciation  has  ob¬ 
scured  the  prevalence  of  true  religion,  which  is  es¬ 
sentially  for  common  nature’s  daily  food. 

But  if  the  Florentine  merchant  of  the  fifteenth 
century  presents  the  picture  of  religion,  let  the  pic- 

1“Geschichte  der  Papste,”  Dritter  Band,  p.  14,  by  Ludwig 
Pastor. 


RELIGION 


43 


ture  which  Prince  Kropotkin  gives  of  his  old  nurse, 
Vasilisa,  remind  us  how  the  same  essentially  religious 
qualities  appear  in  poor  Russian  peasants,  under  the 
ban  of  the  Church  for  their  dissent. 

“Her  family  was  one  of  the  poorest;  besides  her 
husband  she  had  only  a  small  boy  to  help  her,  and  a 
girl,  my  foster-sister,  who  became  later  on  a  preacher 
and  a  ‘virgin’  in  the  Nonconformist  sect  to  which 
they  belonged.  There  was  no  bound  to  her  joy 
when  I  came  to  see  her.  Cream,  eggs,  apples,  and 
honey  were  all  that  she  could  offer;  but  the  way  in 
which  she  offered  them,  in  bright  wooden  plates, 
after  having  covered  the  table  with  a  fine  snow-white 
linen  tablecloth  of  her  own  making  (with  the  Russian 
Nonconformists  absolute  cleanliness  is  a  matter  of 
religion),  and  the  fond  words  with  which  she  ad¬ 
dressed  me,  treating  me  as  her  own  son,  left  the 
warmest  feelings  in  my  heart.  I  must  say  the  same 
of  the  nurses  of  my  elder  brothers,  Nicholas  and 
Alexander,  who  belonged  to  prominent  families  of 
two  other  Nonconformist  sects  in  Nikdlskoye.  Few 
know  what  treasuries  of  goodness  can  be  found  in 
the  hearts  of  Russian  peasants,  even  after  centuries 
of  the  most  cruel  oppression,  which  might  well  have 
embittered  them.”  1 

No  Church  has  any  monopoly  of  religion ;  no  sect, 
however  narrow,  can  claim  the  monopoly  which  is 
denied  to  the  most  exclusive  Churches.  The  recog¬ 
nition  of  this  fact,  which  is  forced  on  every  mind  that 

1  “Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist,”  by  P.  Kropotkin,  p.  42. 


44 


GREAT  ISSUES 


candidly  inquires,  is  the  first  step  towards  a  real 
catholicity.  The  attempt  to  secure  a  unity  of 
thought,  or  of  culture,  by  coercion,  political  or  eccle¬ 
siastical,  has  only  irreligious  issues.  Conformity  can 
be  produced  by  compulsion,  but  agreement  cannot. 
The  differences  between  human  minds  are  radical 
and  ineffaceable.  In  the  Roman  Church,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  ever  haunted  by  memories  of  its  origin  in  the 
Imperial  unity  of  Rome,  and  employing  every  wea¬ 
pon,  carnal  and  spiritual,  to  maintain  her  corporate 
unity  under  an  infallible  autocracy,  differences  and 
antagonisms  reveal  themselves  which  are  fiercer  than 
the  quarrels  of  rival  sects  outside  her  borders. 
Franciscans  and  Dominicans  began  with  antagonism 
to  the  older  Orders,  and  proceeded  to  antagonism 
to  each  other.  Jesuits  and  Jansenists  maintained  a 
bitter  feud ;  Pascal,  victorious  in  dialectic,  was 
crushed  by  the  weight  of  the  opposing  legions.  The 
Jesuits  conquered,  but  only  to  become  the  scandal  of 
the  Church  which  they  saved,  and  the  main  argu¬ 
ment  against  the  conversion  of  the  world  to  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  casuistry  and  intrigue  with  which  they  have 
managed  to  identify  their  Church. 

In  the  middle  nineteenth  century  there  were  two 
great  converts  from  the  English  Church  to  Rome; 
their  portraits  are  side  by  side  in  the  National  Por¬ 
trait  Gallery,  and  their  names  will  always  live  in  the 
religious  history  of  England.  Were  these  two  dis¬ 
tinguished  converts  at  one  in  the  unity  of  the  One 
Church  to  which  they  had  both  fled  ?  The  memoirs 


RELIGION 


45 


of  their  lives  record  the  curious  fact  that  they  were 
not.  The  natural  antagonism  of  their  temperaments 
survived  the  unifying  process  of  their  conversion. 

While  religion  is  one  there  cannot  be  one  Church 
or  one  creed  without  that  kind  of  coercion,  physical 
or  mental,  which  is  injurious  to  religion  itself.  The 
only  unity  which  is  worth  anything  is  a  unity  which 
can  be  found  in  the  absolute  liberty  to  differ  and 
under  the  countless  forms  which  the  differences  as¬ 
sume.  The  lower  types  of  religion  exact  uniformity ; 
they  make  exclusive  claims ;  they  deny  that  anything 
outside  themselves  is  or  can  be  truly  religious.  But 
the  higher  the  type  of  religion  the  wider  is  its  outlook, 
the  more  comprehensive  is  its  sympathy,  the  more 
ready  is  it  to  recognize  its  own  truths,  obscured,  it 
may  be,  under  the  forms  of  other  systems;  acknow¬ 
ledging  the  unity  of  man  and  the  unity  of  religion  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  it  keeps  in  touch  with 
all  and  tends  to  draw  the  lower  thought  up  to  its 
higher  level.  It  realizes  the  unity  in  which  it  believes 
by  believing  it.  Its  catholicity  is  its  universalism ; 
it  finds  that  God  is  One  and  God  is  the  Father; 
consequently  all  men,  wandering  or  foregathered,  in 
darkness  or  in  light,  are  brothers;  all  religions  are 
the  sincere,  if  blind,  effort  to  find  the  Father  and  the 
oneness. 

The  justification  of  Christianity,  and  its  claim  to 
be  the  best  and  truest  religion  known  to  the  world, 
must  rise  and  fall  with  its  universality.  If  it  gathers 
together  in  one,  if  it  breaks  down  the  middle  walls 


46 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  partition,  if  it  can  substantiate  its  message  to  man 
as  man,  to  the  world  as  a  world,  it  is  thereby  proved 
to  be  the  best  and  the  truest.  If  it  fails  in  this  respect, 
it  cannot  keep  its  place  at  the  head  of  the  morals 
or  the  science  of  advancing  humanity,  and  nothing 
can  hinder  it  from  a  destined  decay.  If  it  is  exclusive 
and  damnatory,  if  it  seriously  maintains  that  the 
vast  majority  of  the  human  race  are  reserved  for  an 
eternity  of  penal  fires  in  the  world  to  come,  it  sinks 
to  the  level  of  other  religions;  and  already  there  is 
in  sight  a  larger  and  a  better  faith  burning  in  the 
hearts  of  men. 

The  present  writer  distinguishes  between  the 
Christian  religion  and  its  embodiment  in  the 
Churches  and  creeds  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
He  is  prepared  to  admit  that  these  are  capable  of 
amendment,  or  even  of  advantageous  annihilation; 
but  Christianity,  as  it  emerges  from  the  crucible  of 
modern  thought  and  experience,  seems  to  him  to  be 
not  only  the  best  we  know,  but  the  best  that  can  be 
known.  Let  the  patient  reader  follow  him  for  a 
moment  in  the  defence  of  this  position. 

There  is  in  Churches  and  religious  organizations 
the  same  tendency  to  decay  as  in  other  human  insti¬ 
tutions.  The  scheme  of  Providence  does  not  guar¬ 
antee  any  immunity,  on  the  ground  that  these  devices 
are  originally  intended  to  embody  and  to  promote 
religion.1  In  the  first  instance,  the  Church,  or  the 

1  “A  religion  gains  nothing  by  time,  but  only  loses,”  says 
Harnack,  “Dogmengeschichte,”  li.  447. 


RELIGION 


47 


order,  or  the  sect  is  purified  by  its  passion  and  kept 
efficient  by  its  onward  movement.  The  ardour 
cools,  the  onrush  ceases;  things  settle  down;  pres¬ 
ently  there  is  decorum,  decency,  tradition,  and  then 
decay.  When  the  decay  is  far  advanced  the  Church, 
or  society,  once  the  embodiment  of  a  religious  truth, 
becomes  not  only  ineffective,  but  even  a  positive 
hindrance  to  religion.  The  stronger  the  organiza¬ 
tion,  the  more  tenacious  of  power  and  influence,  so 
much  the  more  injurious  and  corrupting  it  becomes. 
Civilization  may  be  arrested,  science  may  be  checked, 
thought  may  be  sterilized,  whole  nations  may  be 
destroyed,  by  such  an  organization,  which  still 
bears  the  name  of  religion,  but  has  become  merely 
a  vast  political  engine,  preserving  by  superstition,  or 
intrigue,  or  power  the  influence  and  authority  of 
its  priesthood. 

The  holy  well,  Lenzem,  at  Mecca,  into  which 
the  moon  once  fell,  which  pilgrims  drink  or  use  for 
their  ablutions,  the  waters  of  which  are  sent  to 
Mohammedan  princes  throughout  the  world,  was, 
some  years  ago,  analyzed  by  Dr.  Frankland  at  South 
Kensington.  The  water  was  found  to  be  sewage, 
seven  times  more  concentrated  than  London  sewage, 
containing  579  grains  of  solid  matter  per  gallon.  It 
had,  in  a  word,  become  the  cholera  centre  of  Arabia.1 

That  is  the  fate  of  many  holy  wells.  When  Italy 
and  Spain  and  France  in  turn  suppressed  the  mo¬ 
nastic  orders;  when  even  the  Pope  suppressed  the 

1  Spectator ,  September  10,  1881. 


48 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Order  of  Jesuits;  when  the  Reformation  broke  over 
Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century;  when  Francis  and 
Dominic  came  propping  the  tottering  Church  in 
the  thirteenth;  when  Wyclif  and  the  Lollards  woke 
England  out  of  the  dogmatic  slumber  of  centuries; 
when  Augustine  directed  the  distracted  times  in  which 
he  lived  to  the  City  of  God;  when  Christ  came  and 
Jerusalem  fell ;  when  the  prophets  of  Israel  inveighed 
against  the  corrupt  cultus ;  when  Moses  framed  the 
Law  for  his  people  in  the  midst  of  the  surrounding 
corruption  —  far  back  as  the  eye  can  carry  the 
thought  in  the  earliest  history  of  man,  the  everlasting 
spirit  of  religion  has  been  breaking  away  from  the 
forms,  the  institutions,  the  corporations,  guilds, 
Churches,  which  once  embodied  and  then  choked 
it,  to  reassert  its  living  power  and  to  seek  fresh  and 
more  suitable  embodiments  for  new  times  and  con¬ 
ditions. 

The  stronger  a  Church  is  the  more  dangerous  it  is, 
for  in  its  decay  it  will  more  powerfully  infect  the 
world.  And  it  is  one  of  the  most  striking  evidences 
of  Christ’s  religion,  the  first  mark  which  destines  it 
for  permanence  and  universality,  that,  in  its  purity, 
it  has  no  priesthood  and  no  organizations.  “My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,”  says  the  Founder.  He 
does  not  ordain  priests,  but  only  messengers  of  the 
evangel  (i.e.,  Apostles).  He  does  not  frame  an 
organization,  but  only  the  gathering  of  two  or  three 
in  His  name,  with  His  spiritual  presence  in  the  midst. 

As  Christianity  is,  in  its  origin,  perfectly  free  of 


RELIGION 


49 


organization,  and  as  the  organizations  which  have  in 
the  course  of  time  sprung  up  are  merely  the  attempt 
made,  necessarily  made,  from  age  to  age,  to  embody 
the  eternal  spirit,  all  Churches  may  decay,  become 
obsolete,  prove  springs  of  corruption,  holy  wells  of 
infection,  and  their  doom  may  be  sealed,  and  yet 
Christianity  remains  what  it  was  at  the  beginning, 
is  now,  and  ever  shall  be  —  a  historical  fact,  a  reli¬ 
gious  idea,  the  truth  about  man  and  God,  a  power, 
the  only  power  in  the  world,  which  works  steadily 
for  the  salvation  of  men. 

Let  us  endeavour  to  see  clearly  what  this  religion 
is,  which  is  embodied  in  Churches,  travestied  in 
Churches,  often  strangled  in  Churches;  let  us  insist 
on  distinguishing  it,  as  a  vital  factor  in  history  and 
in  men,  from  the  humiliating  story  of  ecclesiastical 
institutions  which  is  frequently  mistaken  for  Chris¬ 
tianity.  Christendom  to-day  presents  an  extra¬ 
ordinary  spectacle.  The  Catholic  Church  is  dis¬ 
credited  in  Catholic  countries,  and  flourishes  only  in 
Protestant  countries  by  virtue  of  the  very  liberty 
which  she  has  herself  consistently  denied.  There 
is  hardly  a  country  in  Europe  in  which  the  strength 
and  manhood  of  the  people  are  not  arrayed  against 
Catholicism.  The  Orthodox  Church  of  Russia 
has  betrayed  her  country  to  her  ruin;  the  hope  of 
regeneration  is  entirely  divorced  from  that  stereo¬ 
typed  and  sterile  expression  of  the  Christian  religion ; 
one  solitary  Protestant,  Count  Leo  Tolstoi,  carries 
more  weight  in  the  living  world  of  to-day  than  the 


5° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


whole  body  of  Eastern  Orthodoxy.  In  Protestant 
countries  the  Churches  are  very  largely  neglected. 
The  buildings,  though  far  too  few  for  the  population, 
are  generally  half  empty.  Being  weaker  and  more 
divided  than  Catholicism,  and  not  aiming  at  political 
domination,  they  do  not  excite  the  same  dread  or 
antipathy;  but  they  are  neglected  and  despised  and 
left  to  decay. 

But  only  the  most  careless  observer  thinks  that 
Christianity  is  weakened  or  decaying.  Christendom 
is  more  clearly  defined  than  ever  as  the  progressive 
part  of  humanity.  It  is  marked  off  from  ancient 
systems  like  Confucianism  or  Buddhism,  and  from 
systems  more  recent  than  itself,  Mohammedanism  or 
Positivism,  by  the  possession  of  a  vital  power,  which 
extends  its  borders,  enlarges  its  life,  and  leads  it, 
by  an  irresistible  destiny,  to  dominate  the  world. 

The  Churches  seem  to  be  dying,  but  Christianity 
is  living.  Every  day  it  asserts  itself  more  clearly 
as  the  best  which  the  human  race  knows,  or  even  can 
know.  What,  then,  is  this  living  and  irrepressible 
spirit,  which,  driven  from  Churches,  takes  possession 
of  the  world;  which,  while  working  in  all  minds, 
and  through  all  channels  of  human  activity,  has  the 
potency  and  promise  of  universal  empire?  That  is 
a  question  which  every  serious  mind  will  like  to 
answer.  It  is,  first  of  all,  what  has  been  happily 
called  the  Fact  of  Christ.1  The  person  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  Christianity.  In  that  person  there  is  an 

1  “The  Fact  of  Christ,”  by  P.  Carnegie  Simpson.  Hodder 
&  Stoughton. 


RELIGION 


51 


ideal  for  humanity,  which  neither  experience  nor 
theory  can  better.  In  the  judgment  of  the  gravest 
sceptics,  after  the  most  impartial  inquiry,  there  is 
no  way  of  attaining  a  good  life,  or  of  judging 
what  a  good  life  is,  so  effectual  as  to  determine  to 
act  in  such  a  way  as  would  win  the  approval  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  The  character  presented  to  us  as  the 
norm  of  humanity  is  one  that  contains  the  noble 
ingredients  which  have  always  been  recognized  as 
indispensable,  viz.,  courage,  wisdom,  justice,  and 
temperance;  but  certain  qualities  which  were  new, 
or  at  least  unrecognized  as  parts  of  the  perfect  man 
—  these  are  purity,  love,  forgiveness,  and  humility. 
The  character  of  man  is  ideally  rounded  and  com¬ 
pleted.  What  a  man  should  be  swims  into  human 
ken,  not  by  the  theorizing  elaborations  of  the  moral¬ 
ist,  but  in  the  artlessly-drawn  presentation  of  an 
actual  person. 

Christianity  is  simply  Christ.  It  is  this  Person 
presented  to  the  intelligence  and  conscience  of  man¬ 
kind,  for  each  to  accept  and  believe  in. 

The  Person,  however,  is  not  sufficiently  described 
when  His  characteristics  are  delineated.  His  offer 
of  Himself  to  men  is  part  of  His  person.  His  re¬ 
demptive  power  for,  and  over,  men  is  also  part  of 
His  person.  The  image  of  God  reflected  in  His 
consciousness  is  part  of  His  person.  The  promise 
and  power  of  spiritual  continuance  after  His  death, 
and  of  active  operation  in  human  life  to  “  the  end  of 
the  world,”  is  part  of  His  person. 


52 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Thus  we  obtain  as  the  essence  of  Christianity 
the  fact  of  Christ,  a  Person  who  is,  in  the  first  place, 
the  ideal  Character,  presented  to  mankind  for  fol¬ 
lowing  and  imitation;  in  the  second  place,  a  living 
and  eternal  power  accessible  in  the  Spirit  to  the 
spirit  of  every  man,  a  power  to  change  and  save 
every  soul  that  receives  Him;  and  in  the  third 
place,  a  mirror  in  which  the  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Being  that  made  the  world  and  man  is  sufficiently 
reflected. 

God  as  reflected  in  the  human  being  of  Christ 
appears  in  a  light  which  man  had  not  up  to  that  time 
conceived,  nor  since  has  man  obtained  any  clearer 
or  better  conception.  The  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Being  is  Spirit;  He  stands  in  relation  to  men  as  a 
Father;  He  loves  them  and  cares  for  them.  He  is 
holy  Spirit,  identical  with  the  good,  antagonistic 
to  the  evil,  in  the  world  and  men.  He  has  holy 
designs  of  love  for  men.  Christ  is  the  declaration 
and  the  agency  of  these  designs. 

Apart  from  all  Churches,  which  are  merely  the 
human  efforts,  made  age  after  age,  to  grasp  and 
to  embody  this  religion;  before  the  Churches  were, 
and  even  should  the  Churches  cease  to  exist  —  here 
is  the  best  that  we  know  in  the  way  of  religion. 
And  as  the  truth  it  is  indefeasible  and  irresistible. 
When  it  is  understood,  separated  from  the  accretions 
and  corruptions,  the  ambitions  and  the  claims  of 
interested  persons,  and  the  corrupt  illusions  of  our 
own  minds,  it  immediately  commends  itself  to  men: 


RELIGION 


S3 


This  must  be  the  key  to  the  mystery  of  life,  the  light 
of  eternity  falling  on  the  dim  tract  of  time. 

And  it  may  be  called  not  only  the  best  we  know, 
but  the  best  that  can  be  known,  because  after 
some  generations  of  the  freest  and  most  vigorous 
inquiry,  after  a  century  of  amazing  progress  in 
science,  and  in  full  view  of  all  attempts  to  improve 
upon  this  truth,  or  even  to  make  suggestion  of  an 
improvement,  nothing  better  emerges,  nothing  more 
probable  or  more  certain.  Comte’s  religion,  the 
only  serious  attempt  of  the  nineteenth  century  to 
provide  a  substitute  for  Christianity,  is  no  improve¬ 
ment  even  in  idea.  His  Grand  Etre  is  not  in  any 
intelligible  sense  a  God;  his  roll  of  human  saints 
presents  no  better  ideal,  and  a  far  weaker  incentive 
to  imitation,  than  the  lone  person  of  Christ.  A 
visitor  to  the  temple  of  Positivism,  after  half  a  cen¬ 
tury  of  propaganda,  found,  in  place  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  three  Persons  and  One  God,  three  per¬ 
sons  present  and  no  God. 

The  other  great  attempt  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  find  a  substitute  for  religion  in  a  philosophy,  the 
synthetic  system  of  Herbert  Spencer,  was  already, 
before  the  great  master  was  dead,  falling  into  decay. 
The  conclusion  to  which  his  speculations  pointed 
was  that  we  are  in  presence  of  an  Infinite  and  Eter¬ 
nal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed.1  This  is 
an  absolute  certainty.  But  Spencer  persisted  in 
the  idea  that  this  mysterious  being  is  unknown. 

1  “  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,”  ed.  1885,  p.  843. 


54 


GREAT  ISSUES 


And  his  attempt  to  found  a  system  of  ethics  on  the 
theory  that  the  human  mind  is  an  automaton,  the 
product  of  the  evolutionary  forces  which  made  the 
universe,  led  thought  back  to  the  confusion  in  which 
the  earliest  Greek  philosophers  were  involved.  The 
one  assured  fact  of  knowledge,  personality,  remained 
unreal;  that  is  to  say,  not  only  God,  but  man,  is 
unknown. 

How  can  this  cumbersome  and  contradictory 
system,  which  leaves  all  that  is  best  in  man  and  in 
life  unexplained,  except  that  it  is  resolved  into  what 
is  lower,  be  an  improvement  upon  the  fact  of  Christ 
and  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion? 

If  we  are  to  consider  Haeckel’s  monism  another 
attempt  to  find  a  better  way,  we  have  only  to  study 
Dr.  Ballard’s  “Haeckel’s  Monism  False”  to  see 
how  this  later  gospel  is  not  only  no  improvement, 
but  a  tissue  of  absurdities  and  contradictions,  and 
that  when  Haeckel  strays  out  of  his  province,  which 
is  that  of  biological  inquiry,  into  the  realm  of  phi¬ 
losophy  and  religion,  he  is  weak  as  another  man. 

The  simple  truth  of  Christianity  holds  the  field 
because  man  can  find  nothing  better.  Men  turn 
to  it,  sometimes  after  years  of  careless  and  godless 
indifference,  sometimes  after  long  excursions  into 
modern  speculation  and  the  medley  of  other  reli¬ 
gious  systems,  with  that  cry  which  was  uttered  at 
the  beginning:  “Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  for 
Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life.”  Within  the 
Churches  and  outside  of  them  the  best  men  and 


RELIGION 


55 


women  are  moulding  their  lives  on  the  fact  of  Christ  ; 
and  it  is  that  which  constitutes  the  strength  of 
Christendom;  that  is  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the 
light  of  the  world.  Everywhere  there  are  “holy 
and  humble  men  of  heart”  who  in  their  secret 
chamber  commune  with  God  in  Christ,  and  in  their 
daily  life  walk  with  God ;  their  life  is  hid  with  Christ 
in  God,  but  the  effects  of  it  work  in  the  world  as 
its  salvation.  Not  all  the  blindness,  ignorance, 
prejudice,  self-seeking,  and  uncharitableness  of 
Churches  can  alter  the  reality  of  this  secret  and 
persistent  working.  Christ  is  in  the  world,  and  is 
conquering  the  world,  by  the  method  which  He 
Himself  announced,  when  He  said  that  His  king¬ 
dom  would  not  come  with  observation.  They  who 
are  in  the  secret  recognize  Him  working  everywhere. 
His  visionary  form  moves  in  and  out  among  the 
haunts  of  men,  overshadows  parliaments  and  govern¬ 
ments,  visits  the  hearts  of  kings.  Through  political 
and  social  movements,  led  sometimes  by  men  who 
do  not  recognize  Him,  He  works.  In  poems  and 
pictures  and  other  forms  of  art,  even  in  the  drama 
and  the  playhouse,  He  appears. 

The  kind  of  unity  which  He  desired  He  has 
achieved ;  it  is  the  spiritual  unity  of  men  and  nations 
under  the  utmost  variety  of  forms,  and  creeds,  and 
organizations.  From  all  parts  of  the  earth  to-day 
eyes  are  turned  towards  Him ;  more  and  more 
men  are  able  to  distinguish  between  Him  and  the 
Churches,  between  His  reputed  vicegerent  and  His 


56 


GREAT  ISSUES 


own  living,  ubiquitous  presence.  He  is  fulfilling 
His  design  of  gathering  together  in  one  the  children 
of  God  that  are  scattered  abroad.  Eventually 
humanity  will  be  one  in  Him. 


Appendix  to  Chapter  II 

The  following  extracts  from  a  Journal  Intime  may 
shed  some  light  on  that  inner  life  which  is  everywhere 
being  lived  to-day,  by  persons  entirely  unsuspected  and 
unknown : 

“Let  us  get  at  the  things  we  do  most  surely  believe. 
Let  us  look  into  our  own  hearts  and  write.  Not  for 
human  eyes,  but  as  between  God  and  the  soul,  let  us  set 
down  the  points  which  are  settled  and  beyond  dispute: 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  supreme  revelation  of  God.  Within 
the  circle  of  His  being  lies  all  that  we  can  know  of  God. 
Apart  from  Him  we  have  only  metaphysical  and  inferem 
tial  knowledge  of  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  too 
vague  to  be  personal,  too  abstract  to  be  practical.” 

“It  is  in  the  study  and  contemplation  of  Jesus  Christ 
that  I  discover  my  sin.  With  my  eye  on  Him,  I  know 
that  I  am  sinful;  if  I  do  not  feel  it,  I  am  the  more  sure 
of  it,  for  the  callousness  is  an  aggravation.” 

“But  in  the  close  approach  to  Him,  as  He  was  in  the 
Gospel  narrative,  as  He  is  in  the  Spirit  —  for  Christ  is 
above  all  a  Presence  always  at  hand  to  the  soul  —  I  am 
impressed  with  the  certainty  that  forgiveness  is  brought 
to  my  sin,  and  complete  restoration  to  my  moral  and 
spiritual  nature.  This  is  clear  in  experience,  but  only 
at  times,  and  partially,  lucid  to  the  intellect.  This  broad 


RELIGION 


57 


fact  stands  out  like  a  rugged  mountain-range,  softened 
in  the  morning  and  the  evening  lights,  outlined  against 
the  saffron  sky,  bathed  with  purple  and  crimson  dyes  in 
moments  of  magical  transformation,  but  hard  to  climb 
or  to  penetrate.  There  are  times  when  the  whole  range 
is  covered  with  dense  and  thunderous  clouds.  For  days 
together  the  mountains  recede  and  are  invisible.  This 
is  the  rugged  fact  of  Christianity:  that  Christ  is  the 
propitiation  for  sin,  the  propitiation  set  forth,  not  by 
man,  but  by  God;  that  in  Him  God  passes  judgment 
on  sin,  and  yet  forgives;  that  all  who  believe  in  Him 
are  forgiven;  that  the  pardon  works  deliverance;  that 
as  the  soul  dwells  more  and  more  trustfully  in  this 
reality  of  reconciliation  with  God  in  Christ,  the  example 
of  Christ  becomes  more  and  more  imitable,  and  the  word 
of  Christ  more  and  more  authoritative,  more  and  more 
sin  ceases  to  have  dominion.” 

“Here  is  a  certainty  of  experience.  From  this  central 
core  everything  else  is  developed:  the  knowledge  of 
God,  the  love  of  man,  the  guide  for  conduct,  the  com¬ 
mission  of  life,  the  hope  in  death,  the  belief  in  the  future 
world.  These  things  are  not  as  certain  as  the  central 
experience,  but  they  are  connected  with  it  by  an  organic 
tie.  They  fall  like  inevitable  conclusions  from  an 
admitted  premiss.  This  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas 
I  was  blind  now  I  see.  But  these  other  things  I  believe 
because  they  grow  naturally  out  of  what  I  know.  Life 
must  be  a  progressive  inliving  into  the  fact  of  Christ, 
an  imitatio  Christi,  not  from  without  but  from  within.” 

“Plotinus  describes  the  religious  life  as  <f>vyr]  fxovov 
irpos  /xovov,  the  retreat  of  the  solitary  to  the  solitary. 
I  perceive  the  truth  of  this,  and  yet  it  does  not  satisfy 


58 


GREAT  ISSUES 


me.  As  a  nomad  in  the  boundless  universe  I  have 
suffered,  and  yearned  for  companionship.  To  Thee, 
O  God,  have  I  fled,  and  found  that  I  was  not  alone. 
But  the  coming  to  Christ  has  brought  me  into  a  large 
and  jocund  company.  Thou  art  no  longer  a  distant 
solitary,  but  a  persuasive  sympathy,  and  a  consoling 
society.  I  find  I  am  in  relation  with  all.  In  the  arid 
place  is  the  sound  of  abundant  waters.  The  wilderness 
rejoices  and  blossoms  as  the  rose.” 

“The  true  contrast  is  not  between  selfishness  and 
altruism,  for  altruism  may  itself  be  selfish,  but  between 
selfishness  and  God.  The  mind  of  the  flesh  is  still  selfish 
even  in  the  performance  of  unselfish  work.  The  mind 
of  the  spirit,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  harmony  with  the 
All,  and  is  therefore  peace  and  joy.  In  place  of  the  self 
is  God,  God  who  is  in,  and  unites,  all.  The  atheist  self 
has  vanished.” 

“Why  then  shouldst  thou  delay  to  make  the  true 
choice  and  take  thy  place  with  God  and  in  the  universe  ? 
Here  is  the  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life.  Why  stop  short? 
Enter  the  Way,  believe  the  Truth,  live  the  Life.” 

4/ 

^ 

“How  long  wilt  thou  persist,  O  my  soul,  in  making 
demands,  especially  here,  where  thou  hast  no  rights 
except  such  as  are  forfeit?  And  why  wilt  thou  talk 
ever  of  humility  and  yet  refuse  to  be  humble?  Once 
thou  demandedst  success  and  reputation;  shaken  from 
so  presumptuous  and  vain  a  request,  thou  askedst  at  least 
for  enjoyment  or  comfort ;  perceiving  at  length  that  this 
was,  except  intermittently,  impossible  in  a  world  of 
change,  thou  yet  preferredst  a  petition  for  subsistence, 
for  the  privilege  of  serving  and  being  useful.  O  most 


RELIGION 


59 


vain  soul,  is  not  this  the  greatest  demand  of  all  ?  What 
inherent  claim  hast  thou  to  subsistence?  And  to  serve 
and  be  useful  is  the  richest  boon  on  earth.  Wilt  thou 
not  therefore  attain  a  true  humility,  and  demand  noth¬ 
ing  of  thy  God  except  a  complete  contentment  with 
His  ways?” 

“Why  this  avidity  of  joy  in  our  hearts?  Clearly 
there  is  a  true  joy  to  be  attained.  But  it  cannot  be  that 
which  men  commonly  desire.  We  covet  joys  which  are 
fires  within,  with  brief  pleasurable  warmth  and  leaping 
flames,  followed  by  consuming  pain  and  dead  ashes.  But 
One  promised  us  His  joy,  which  is  the  genial  and  un¬ 
failing  warmth  upon  the  hearth  of  God.  But  what  kind 
of  joy  was  His?  The  joy  of  renunciation  and  of  the 
Cross.” 

“‘They  would  not  receive  Him  because  His  face  was 
set  to  go  to  Jerusalem.’  We  cannot  accustom  ourselves 
to  this  necessity,  that  if  our  face  is  in  that  direction 
the  world  will  not  receive  us.  Thus,  setting  our  face 
resolutely,  we  still  inwardly  expect  admiration,  and  the 
solicitation  of  men’s  desire.  We  are  still  surprised  at 
their  indifference.  We  go  forward,  but  we  look  back. 
We  are  so  far  Christian  that  we  do  not  seek  the  world; 
we  are  not  so  far  Christian  that  we  give  up  expecting 
that  the  world  will  seek  us.  Hence  this  constant  dis¬ 
appointment  and  fretfulness,  this  suspicion  that  we  are 
unappreciated  or  hardly  dealt  with.  The  Samaritans 
did  not  receive  Jesus;  the  Jews  crucified  Him.” 

“After  many  protests  of  renunciation,  there  remains 
still  the  inward  renunciation  to  be  made.  We  forego 
for  a  time,  with  implicit  hope  that  presently  ample 
amends  will  be  made.  We  consent  to  be  nothing  to-day, 


6o 


GREAT  ISSUES 


that  we  may,  even  by  this  foregoing,  be  much  to-morrow. 
This  means  that  there  is  yet  a  corner  to  be  turned  in 
the  inward  life.  Not  to-day  nor  to-morrow  expect  or 
desire  to  be  anything.  Self  is  the  boulder  in  the  way 
which  must  be  passed  and  left  behind;  its  very  memory 
must  be  distasteful.” 

“How  is  it  that  we  continue  to  expect,  as  if  there 
were  always  something  behind?  Is  it  not  ignoble  to  be 
cheated  in  this  way  by  the  illusions  of  life?  There  is 
nothing  behind.  The  scenes  and  the  moving  wings 
of  the  stage  are  all.  Life  does  not  contain  the  complete¬ 
ness  that  it  suggests.  The  soul  is  meant  to  be  wistful. 
Forbear  to  rummage  in  the  back  parts  of  the  stage  among 
the  sordid  properties  and  in  the  cavernous  emptiness. 
The  hunger  in  thy  heart  is  satisfied  only  in  God;  and 
God  is  here  and  now.  There  is  nothing  more  than  this 
omnipresent  Presence,  this  eternal  Now.” 

“Frequently  it  happens  that  the  way  is  bared,  and  all 
objects  of  beauty  and  interest  disappear.  Also,  by  an 
illusion,  the  sense  of  a  goal  withers  in  the  heart,  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  scope :  even  humblest  service 
appears  rejected.  These  are  the  times  for  sheer  faith, 
and  for  the  discovery  of  the  reality  within. 

‘When  to  thy  ship  in  tempest  hell  appears, 

And  every  spectre  mutters  up  more  dire 
To  snatch  control 

And  loose  to  madness  the  deep-kennelled  fears, 

Then  to  the  helm,  O  soul!’” 

“Now  what  is  this  strange  sweetness  which  breaks 
upon  the  soul  when  renunciation  is  made  —  I’ineffable 
joie  du  renoncement  de  joie  ?  Certainly  it  was  intended. 
The  way  through  the  desert,  honestly  chosen  and  faith- 


RELIGION 


6l 


fully  pursued,  has  suddenly  plunged  down  into  a  flowery 
dell,  where  the  waters  are  cool  and  the  fruit  is  luscious 
and  the  birds  sing.” 

“We  are  feverishly  anxious  that  the  estimation  in 
which  the  world  holds  us  should  be  equal  to  our  desert. 
Ought  we  not  rather  to  be  preoccupied  with  the  desire 
to  be  better  than  we  are  esteemed?  Thus  the  world’s 
low  estimate  would  be  a  consolation,  as  a  lessened 
reproach  of  our  poor  advance.” 

“Were  it  not  well,  O  foolish  heart,  to  seek  definitely 
not  to  be  known,  to  court  the  obscurity  of  a  hidden 
life?  What  hindrance  is  like  publicity?  What  check 
is  like  the  loosened  praise  of  men?  A  life  hidden  with 
Christ  in  God  is  the  true  life.  Let  after  generations 
discover  thee,  when  it  no  more  concerns  thee;  let  them 
light  on  traces  of  a  shy  soul  that  dwelt  intimately  with 
God,  and  take  heart  for  a  like  inwardness.  But  thou 
art  happy  if  it  is  said  of  thee:  ‘Of  his  generation,  who 
among  them  considered  him?’” 

“For,  of  a  truth,  O  God,  thou  regardest  those  whom 
men  ignore.  Thou  art  One  that  hidest  Thyself,  and 
lovest  hidden  souls.” 

^f> 

“When,  O  my  soul,  wilt  thou  begin  to  see  in  Sorrow 
thy  Preceptress?  Is  it  necessary  to  have  sat  in  her 
school  for  a  lifetime,  and  to  be  by  now  well-nigh  out 
of  her  hands,  before  thou  wilt  perceive  her  solitary 
ways?  At  least  here  at  the  midpoint  of  life  recognize 
that  thou  hast  learnt  thy  wholesomest  lessons  at  her 
feet,  and  that  her  face  is  beautiful  as  the  dew-washed 
evening  star.” 


62 


GREAT  ISSUES 


“Unhappy  are  they  who  see  pure  truth,  for  they  must 
declare  it;  and  no  one  wants  it  or  will  receive  it.  Truth 
accommodated  to  error  is  the  article  demanded  in  the 
world’s  mart.  Inevitably  therefore  they  who  come  to 
bear  witness  of  the  truth  proceed  to  Calvary.  For 
wickedness  and  truth-loving  alike  the  world  provides 
a  cross;  for  it  does  not  distinguish  between  them.” 

u#  w 

^ 

“When  Prince  Charles  of  Roumania  ascended  his 
throne,  on  the  declaration  of  independence  in  May,  1877, 
the  crown  was  made  out  of  the  iron  of  a  Turkish  gun 
captured  by  his  troops  at  Grivitza;  in  the  arsenal  Rou¬ 
manians  worked  all  day,  foreigners  excluded,  to  prepare 
the  crown  for  the  King’s  brow.  There  is  another  King 
whose  crown  is  wrought  of  the  engines  which  have  been 
brought  by  His  enemies  against  Him.  But  the  corona¬ 
tion  is  not  yet.” 

“You  say  that  evolution  is  shaped  by  environment; 
you  say  that  the  universe  has  been  evolved.  What,  then, 
was  the  environment  of  the  universe,  or  if  it  had  no  en¬ 
vironment,  how  was  it  evolved? 

“Always  there  is  something  fatally  lacking  in  every 
attempt  to  account  for  things.  Certainly  there  must 
be  an  environment  of  the  universe  if  evolution  is  its 
law.  How  should  Personality  emerge  from  the  un¬ 
designed  collision  of  impersonal  forces?  How  should 
matter  produce  spirit?  The  venture  of  Faith  is  there¬ 
fore  also  the  necessity  of  Reason:  in  the  beginning  God 
created.” 


CHAPTER  III 


MORALITY 

Mr.  Coulton’s  vivid  picture  of  mediasval  life, 
derived  largely  from  the  chronicle  of  Salimbene, 
raises  a  most  interesting  question.  The  period 
it  covers  is  that  between  St.  Francis  and  Savonarola, 
those  three  centuries,  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth, 
and  fifteenth,  which  are,  if  any,  the  age  of  faith. 
To  say  that  this  period  was  not  an  age  of  morality 
is  to  use  the  figure  of  speech  known  as  litotes.  The^ 
evidence  of  wickedness,  especially  among  the  clergy, 
is  given,  happily  for  the  general  reader,  in  Latin. 
No  purpose  can  be  served  by  presenting  these  re¬ 
volting  details  to  the  eyes  of  the  public.  Yet  the 
general  conclusion  is  one  which  the  public  is  entitled 
to  know.  Indeed,  no  more  salutary  lesson  is  to 
be  learnt,  for  religious  teachers  and  for  the  rising 
generation,  than  the  connection  between  morality 
and  religion  which  here  receives  copious  illus¬ 
tration. 

There  is  a  loose  assumption  underlying  most 
modern  criticism  of  Churches,  that  religion  and 
morality  are  identical.  But  in  reality  no  two  things 
are  in  their  beginnings  wider  apart.  So  far  from 

63 


64 


GREAT  ISSUES 


being  identical,  their  identification  is  a  slow  and 
arduous  achievement.  To  accomplish  that  identi¬ 
fication  is  the  main  purpose  of  human  evolution. 
That  Christianity  identifies  them  is  its  main  dis¬ 
tinction.  It  is  the  first  religion  which  explicitly 
and  frankly  makes  the  two  inseparable.  That  is 
the  strongest  line  of  defence,  its  chief  claim  on  the 
adhesion  and  the  gratitude  of  mankind.  A  book 
like  Mr.  Coulton’s  reminds  us  how  slowly  the 
Christian  idea  made  its  way,  against  what  over¬ 
whelming  obstacles  it  had  to  contend,  and  how 
often  in  the  history  of  the  Church  it  almost  vanished 
out  of  sight. 

If  religion  and  morality  are  not  yet  brought  to¬ 
gether  in  practice,  if  the  divorce  is  still  flagrant, 
if  ethical  societies  are  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  out  the  morality  which  the  Churches  neglect, 
if  infidelity  finds  its  weapons  with  which  to  fight 
religion  in  the  immorality  of  religious  persons  and 
institutions,  there  is  less  cause  for  astonishment  and 
discouragement  than  at  first  sight  appears.  The 
one  great  and  constant  and  irrefragable  fact  to  the 
good  is,  that  Christianity  does  identify  religion  and 
morality,  and  therefore  affords  the  most  powerful 
engine  in  the  world  for  making  religion  moral. 
That  at  any  rate  is  a  fait  accompli .  Here  is  a  vast 
major  premiss  which,  before  Christ  came,  was  want¬ 
ing.  It  stands,  however  bad  the  minor  premiss 
of  practice  may  be,  however  illegitimate  the  con¬ 
clusion  drawn  from  the  premisses  may  seem.  Here 


MORALITY 


65 


is  a  statement  of  Mr.  Carnegie  Simpson’s,  which 
in  its  crisp  distinctness  affords  us  a  good  starting- 
point  for  the  argument : 

“In  the  civilization  of  the  Roman  Empire  — 
a  civilization  in  some  respects  more  elaborate  than 
ours  —  religion  was  something  absolutely  apart 
from  morality.  The  priests  and  augurs  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome  never  for  one  moment  regarded 
it  as  any  part  of  their  duty  to  exhort  or  help  men  to 
a  purer  life.  Alike  public  life  and  private  were 
steeped  in  a  heartlessness  of  cruelty  and  an  abandon¬ 
ment  of  vice  such  as  we  can  hardly  realize;  but  the 
pagan  religion  made  no  protest,  for,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  its  mysteries  often  screened  and  its  ministers 
sanctioned  the  grossest  iniquities.  It  is  this  entire 
divorce  between  religion  and  morality  in  the  ancient 
world  which  supplies  the  explanation,  as  Mr.  Lecky 
has  pointed  out,  of  the  apparently  strange  circum¬ 
stance  that  the  classical  philosophical  moralists  pay 
so  little  attention  to  the  appearance  of  Christian¬ 
ity.  One  would  suppose  that  that  religion,  as  a 
mere  system  of  ethics,  apart  from  any  theological 
beliefs,  would  have  commanded  the  notice  of  all 
serious  men.  But  so  we  can  imagine  the  phi¬ 
losophers  who  were  in  earnest  about  moral  things 
saying:  Is  this  not  a  religion?  and  what  has  a  re¬ 
ligion  to  do  with  the  matter  of  moral  life?  Thus 
argued,  and  most  naturally,  such  men  as  Plutarch, 
or  Seneca,  or  Epictetus,  or  M.  Aurelius,  and  thus 
before  the  eyes  of  these  great  moralists  emerged 


66 


GREAT  ISSUES 


what  was  to  be  the  supreme  moral  phenomenon 
of  history,  and  they  gave  it  hardly  a  glance.”  1 

If  this  sounds  a  paradox  to  the  reader,  it  is  only 
because  the  fundamental  idea  of  Christianity,  viz., 
that  religion  and  morality  are  identical,  has  so  per¬ 
meated  the  modern  mind,  that  it  is  assumed  even 
by  sceptics  in  their  criticism  of  the  Churches.  If 
ecclesiastical  history  presents  everywhere  the  most 
painful  discord  between  religion  and  morality, 
that  is  only  a  reminder  that  Christianity  is  not 
identical  with  the  Church,  or  at  any  rate  that  the 
Church  is  only  struggling  to  realize  the  Christian 
ideal.  The  failures  at  which  we  are  about  to  glance 
do  not  disprove  Christianity,  they  only  show  that 
Churches  and  Christians  are  not  yet  Christian. 

Suppose  we  establish  it  as  our  first  principle, 
not  open  to  serious  debate,  that  the  distinctive 
feature  of  Christianity  is  the  identification  of  re¬ 
ligion  and  morality.  Without  as  yet  determining 
what  the  religion  is,  or  what  the  morality  is,  let  it 
be  granted  that  the  two  are  one.  Morality  cannot 
admit  a  religion  which  violates  it;  religion  cannot 
sanction  immorality.  The  religious  truth  has  its 
counterpart  in  the  moral  life;  the  moral  life  is  the 
test  and  the  evidence  of  the  religion.  There  is 
no  divorce,  but  an  indissoluble  union.  This  is 
the  Christian  doctrine,  or  philosophy,  or  revelation. 
This  is  Christianity.  To  this,  no  doubt,  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  were  working  up,  slowly,  and  not 


1“The  Fact  of  Christ,”  p.  54. 


MORALITY 


67 


without  many  backwashes;  to  this,  no  doubt,  the 
great  minds  of  all  ages  pointed  —  Buddha,  Con¬ 
fucius,  Plato;  all  the  religions  of  the  world  were 
visited  with  occasional  twinges  of  conscience,  and 
inasmuch  as  they  were  held  by  men  who  also  had 
a  moral  nature,  ever  and  anon  the  sigh  went  up 
that  the  two  might  be  one  —  “  Oh,  might  the  margins 
meet  again!” 

Some  haunting,  vanishing  reminiscence  of  a 
Golden  Age  caused  a  vague  discomfort:  How  can 
the  august  Ought  in  the  conscience  be  separated 
from  the  august  Varuna,  or  Zeus,  on  the  throne  of 
the  Universe? 

But  the  achievement  of  Christianity  was,  that 
religion  was  presented  as  an  ideal  morality,  and, 
embodied  in  the  person  and  character  of  Jesus, 
was  identified  with  God.  Ceremonial  terms,  like 
“sanctification”  and  “holiness,”  “profane”  and 
“unclean,”  were  either  dropped  or  transformed. 
There  was  only  one  term  retained  —  “goodness.” 
God  is  good,  and  man  must  be  good  too.  Christ 
came  to  be  good,  and  to  make  men  good.  There 
at  last  shone  out  the  lucid  truth  of  things.  That 
is  essentially  the  one  all-embracing  revelation. 

It  need  not  surprise  us  that  the  truth  was  not 
immediately  grasped.  How  could  it  have  been? 
It  had  to  be  grasped  by  men,  by  thinkers,  by  races, 
that  were  obsessed  with  alien  notions,  with  ancient 
custom,  with  stains  in  the  blood.  All  the  persons 
who  embraced  the  gospel  were  persons  brought 


68 


GREAT  ISSUES 


up  in  the  alienation  of  religion  and  morality;  the 
pagan  view  of  things  was  strong  in  them.  We  are 
startled  with  the  outcrop  of  rabbinical  Judaism  in 
Paul ;  still  more  startling  is  the  outcrop  of  the  extra- 
Judaic  paganism  in  Justin  Martyr,  Irenaeus,  or 
Origen.  The  revelation  of  Christ  was  before  their 
eyes  and  in  their  ears,  but  the  ideas  and  practices 
of  paganism  were  in  their  hearts,  formed  their 
subliminal  consciousness,  coloured  all  the  doctrines 
which  they  accepted.  “  J.  B.”  in  his  fascinating 
optimism  takes  the  view  that  the  departure  from 
religion  which  we  see  in  the  modem  world  is  really 
the  surrender  of  the  old  paganism  which  was  in¬ 
corporated  with  religion.  As  compulsion  is  with¬ 
drawn,  and  we  are  all  at  liberty  to  think,  we  give  up 
the  traditions,  the  survivals,  the  accretions.  We 
go  back  to  Christianity;  we  look  Christ  in  the  face. 

It  can  hardly  therefore  be  matter  for  surprise 
that  the  ages  of  faith  were  also  the  dark  ages,  that 
the  true  Christianity  was  working  its  way  through 
great  obstacles,  against  the  deadweight  of  surviving 
paganism. 

With  this  preliminary  explanation  we  may  look 
at  Mr.  Coupon’s  facts,  and  learn  from  them. 

“The  ‘Chronicle  of  Meaux’  was  written  at  the 
Cistercian  abbey  of  that  name  in  Yorkshire,  by 
Abbot  Thomas,  of  Burton,  at  the  end  of  the  four¬ 
teenth  century.  On  p.  89  of  Vol.  III.  he  speaks 
of  Pope  Clement  VI.,1  who  instituted  the  fifty  years’ 

1  Pope  from  1342  to  1352,  a.d. 


MORALITY 


69 


jubilee,  and  against  whom  the  Cistercians  as  a  body- 
had  certainly  no  grudge.  The  chronicler  goes  on: 
‘  Now  this  same  Pope  Clement  VI.  had  been  lecherous 
beyond  measure  his  whole  life  long.  For  every 
night  at  vespertide  he  was  wont,  after  the  car¬ 
dinals’  audience,  to  hold  a  public  audience  of  all 
matrons  and  honourable  women  who  wished  to 
come.  At  last  some  men,  speaking  ill  of  him  on 
this  account,  began  to  stand  by  the  palace  doors 
and  secretly  to  number  the  women  who  went  in 
and  who  came  out.  And  when  they  had  done  this 
for  many  days,  there  was  ever  one  lacking  at  their 
egress  from  the  number  of  those  who  had  entered 
in.  When  therefore  many  scandals  and  obloquies 
arose  on  this  account,  the  confessor  of  the  Lord 
Pope  warned  him  frequently  to  desist  from  such 
conduct,  and  to  live  chastely  and  more  cautiously. 
But  he  ever  made  the  same  answer:  “Thus  have 
we  been  wont  to  do  when  we  were  young,  and  what 
we  now  do  we  do  by  counsel  of  our  physicians.” 
But  when  the  Pope  was  aware  that  his  brethren 
the  cardinals  and  his  auditors  and  the  rest  of  the 
Court  murmured  and  spake  ill  of  him  on  this  account, 
one  day  he  brought  in  his  bosom  a  little  black  book 
wherein  he  had  the  names  written  of  his  divers  prede¬ 
cessors  in  the  Papal  chair  who  were  lecherous 
and  incontinent ;  and  he  showed  by  the  facts  therein 
recorded  that  these  had  better  ruled  the  Church, 
and  done  more  good,  than  the  other  continent 
popes.  Moreover  on  the  same'  day  he  raised  to 


70 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  cardinalate  one  of  his  sons,  a  boy  of  sixteen, 
who  was  afterwards  Pope  Gregory  XI.  This 
Clement  VI.  was  succeeded  by  Innocent  VI.,  who 
like  his  predecessor  Clement,  promoted  his  own 
sons  and  brethren  and  nephews  to  cardinals  and 
bishops,  so  that  scarce  any  were  left  in  the  sacred 
college  who  were  not  of  his  kin  or  of  the  aforesaid 
Clement’s.  The  chronicler’s  account  is,  no  doubt, 
exaggerated,  in  parts  at  least;  but  the  significance 
of  the  story  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  was  believed  and 
recorded  for  posterity  by  a  man  in  Abbot  Burton’s 
position.  Hardly  less  significant  is  the  praise  oc¬ 
casionally  bestowed  on  popes  of  exceptional  virtue. 
Peter  of  Herenthals  thinks  it  worth  while  to  note 
that  Gregory  XI.  ‘died  a  virgin  in  mind  and  body 
as  some  have  asserted  ’ ;  and  similarly  Wadding  is 
proud  to  record  of  Salimbene’s  Nicholas  III.,  ‘he 
kept  perpetual  virginity.’  ” 

Indeed,  the  scandal  sometimes  forced  even  the 
laity  to  interfere.  In  1340  the  King  of  France  felt 
bound  to  complain  publicly  to  the  Pope,  who  had 
legitimized  “three  brothers  born  of  a  detestable 
union  —  that  is  to  say,  of  a  bishop  in  pontifical 
dignity,  degree,  or  order,  and  an  unmarried  woman. 
The  word  in  the  original  being  Pontifex ,  it  is  possible 
that  the  father  may  have  been  one  of  the  Pope’s 
predecessors,  several  of  whom  were  notoriously 
unchaste.”  1 

The  singular  thing  is  that  not  Rome,  but  the 
1  “From  St.  Francis  to  Dante,”  Coulton,  p.  426. 


MORALITY 


7* 


Papal  court,  was,  in  the  ages  of  faith,  the  scene  of 
this  moral  depravity.  Avignon  became  as  Rome 
when  the  Pope  resided  there.  Constance  was  as 
Avignon  when  the  Council  met  there.  “  Petrarch 
has  still  harder  words  for  Avignon”  —  Mr.  Coulton 
has  just  quoted  a  visitor  to  Rome  who  describes  the 
city  as  one  continuous  brothel  —  “  during  the  years 
of  the  Pope’s  abode  there;  and  its  common  nick¬ 
name  of  ‘the  sinful  city,’  finds  its  way  even  into 
English  parliamentary  documents  of  the  time. 
Exactly  the  same  complaint  was  made  against  the 
city  of  Constance  during  the  sitting  of  the  Great 
Council  in  the  next  century.  The  iniquities  of 
the  city  of  Rome  itself  have  always  been  proverbial; 
both  Boccaccio  and  Benvenuto  da  Imola  refer  to 
them  as  notorious,  and  they  are  silently  admitted 
even  by  Father  Ryder  in  his  reply  to  Littledale’s 
‘Plain  Reasons.’ ”  1 

Sometimes  the  popes  have  been  better  than  the 
bishops.  For  example,  at  the  Council  of  Lyons  the 
good  Gregory  X.  roundly  asserted  that  the  prelates 
were  “the  cause  of  the  ruin  of  the  whole  world.” 
By  exerting  his  full  power  he  forced  the  prince- 
bishop  Henry  of  Liege  to  resign.  This  great 
prelate  had  two  abbesses  and  a  nun  among  his  con¬ 
cubines;  and  he  boasted  of  having  had  fourteen 
children  in  twenty-two  months. 

Of  course  this  inner  corruption  implied  outer 
corruption  too.  The  ages  of  faith,  as  they  have 

1  Coulton,  loc.  cit.  p.  283. 


72 


GREAT  ISSUES 


been  called,  were  unutterably  miserable.  “Italy,” 
says  Mr.  Coulton,  “remained  for  generation  after 
generation  in  a  state  of  anarchy  and  misery  which 
among  our  own  annals  can  be  paralleled  only  in 
Stephen’s  reign,  when  men  said  that  God  and  his 
saints  slept.  Yet  the  sad  facts  must  be  faced;  for 
it  was  from  this  violent  ferment  that  noble  minds 
like  St.  Francis  and  Dante  took  much  of  that  special 
flavour  which  appeals  so  strongly  to  the  modern 
literary  mind.  Here,  as  on  many  other  points, 
Salimbene’s  evidence  is  all  the  more  valuable  that 
he  himself  was  neither  saint  nor  poet,  but  a  clever, 
observant,  sympathetic  man  with  nothing  heroic 
in  his  composition.”  1 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  extraordinary  anomaly, 
that  the  religion  which  in  its  inception  was  iden¬ 
tical  with  morality  became  in  the  age  before  the 
Reformation  not  only  divorced  from  it,  but  wedded 
to  immorality  of  the  grossest  type.  The  religion 
developed  along  the  lines  of  an  imperial  political 
organization.  The  supreme  ruler  of  the  system 
was  a  sovereign,  a  king  of  kings,  God’s  vicegerent 
on  earth,  designated  “Our  Lord  God  the  Pope.”  2 
This  exalted  and  absolute  representative  of  Christ, 
the  Founder  of  the  religion,  might  be,  and  often  was, 
immoral,  without  impairing  his  authority  or  shaking 
the  faith  of  the  Church.  Good  Churchmen,  like 
Abbot  Burton,  would  admit  the  immorality  without 

1  Coulton,  op.  cit.  p.  132. 

a  “Corpus  Juris  Canonici  ”  (Extrav.  Johannis  xxii.  Tit.  xiv.). 


MORALITY 


73 


questioning  the  religious  authority  of  the  head 
of  the  Church.  Nay,  to  this  day  more  than  half 
of  nominal  Christendom  is  of  the  same  opinion. 
The  loyal  Roman  Catholic  can  read  the  story  of 
Clement  VI.,  or  of  Alexander  VI.,  and  maintain 
that  such  men  were  the  Vicars  of  Christ.  The 
Roman  Catholic  admits  in  the  very  centre  of  his 
spiritual  life  the  separation  between  religion  and 
morality.  The  Church,  with  Clement  VI.  at  its 
head,  with  a  Curia  such  as  is  described  by  Petrarch, 
producing  the  misery  and  anarchy  of  Italy  in  the 
age  described  by  Mr.  Coulton,  is  yet  the  “holy” 
Catholic  Church.  Holiness  does  not  mean  good¬ 
ness.  The  Holy  Father  does  not  mean  necessarily 
a  good  man.  Though  the  priest  be  morally 
corrupt  he  is  still  able  by  his  word  to  “create 
his  Creator,”  or  by  another  word  to  absolve  the 
penitent. 

It  is  not  altogether  astonishing  that  in  the  ethical 
revival  which  is  visiting  the  modern  world  men  who 
are  reverent  to  ethical  ideals  should  break  away 
from  the  Church.  The  Church  which  claims  the 
title  of  Holy,  Catholic,  and  Apostolic  has  made  the 
same  divorce  between  religion  and  morality  which 
occurs  in  the  other  religions  of  the  world.  The 
religious  claim  is  other  than  ethical.  The  vicegerents 
of  God  need  not  be  good,  and  therefore,  it  would 
follow,  the  God  whom  they  represent  need  not  be 
good.  If  Catholicism  is  identical  with  Christianity 
it  can  be  no  cause  for  astonishment  that  men  with 


74 


GREAT  ISSUES 


ethical  ideals  should  turn  away  from  Christianity. 
A  Church  which  regards  Clement  VI.  as  the  vice¬ 
gerent  of  God  —  the  Vicar  for  Christ  on  the  earth  — 
which  demands  for  such  a  representative  the  rev¬ 
erence  and  obedience  which  are  due  to  Christ, 
must  encounter  the  uncompromising  resistance 
of  all  who  identify  religion  and  morality.  If  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  such  an  identification 
is  the  distinctive  feature  of  Christianity,  we  are 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  this  Church  is  not 
Christian.  It  is  a  mistake  to  renounce  Christianity 
because  ethical  truth  requires  us  to  renounce  the 
Church.  The  Reformation  was  a  desperate,  blind 
effort  to  reassert  the  major  premiss  of  Christianity. 
Get  beneath  the  cross  currents  of  the  surface,  and 
you  find  that  the  deep,  irresistible  tide  of  the  move¬ 
ment  flows  from  an  outraged  conscience.  Every¬ 
thing  else  is  temporary  and  incidental.  The  politi¬ 
cal  intrigues,  revolts,  and  aspirations  which  attempted 
to  exploit  the  Reformation  must  be  distinguished 
from  the  Reformation  itself.  Even  the  limitations 
and  passions  and  ancient  prejudices  of  the  Re¬ 
formers  themselves  must  be  put  aside.  Whether 
we  regard  Wicklif  the  morning  star,  or  Luther  the 
meridian  light,  of  the  movement,  we  ought  not  to 
miss  the  simplicity  and  sincerity  of  the  motive. 

Here  was  the  discovery,  shall  we  say  in  Scripture, 
or  in  the  deep  inner  testimony  of  the  human  spirit 
itself  in  the  evolution  of  time  ?  that  the  all-important 
factor  of  human  life  is  goodness,  and  that  the  re- 


MORALITY 


75 


ligion  which  for  a  thousand  years  had  dominated 
and  moulded  Europe  was  not  good  and  did  not 
make  men  good.  If  the  Imperial  Court  of  the 
religion  is  also  the  centre  of  moral  corruption,  of 
unscrupulous  intrigue,  of  amazing  avarice,  ambition, 
and  obscurantism,  the  religion  stands  condemned. 

In  that  great  moral  uprising  Europe  would  have 
broken  with  Christianity  altogether  but  for  one 
thing.  There  was  a  book  —  like  that  book  brought 
to  Josiah  from  the  recesses  of  the  Temple,  six  cen¬ 
turies  before  Christ  —  hidden  away  in  the  dusty 
libraries  of  the  Church,  a  venerated  Law-book, 
but  unstudied  and  practically  unknown.  This  Book 
was  unearthed.  By  the  recent  discovery  of  print¬ 
ing  it  could  be  circulated.  By  the  labours  of  scholars 
like  Erasmus  and  (Ecolampadius  it  could  be  given 
to  the  world  in  the  vernacular.  It  was  this  Book 
which  saved  the  situation.  It  had  the  authority  of 
antiquity;  it  was  admitted  by  all  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  to  be  the  sole  guide  for  doctrine  and  practice. 
Practically  unknown  as  it  was,  it  was  carefully  pre¬ 
served.  Obscured  as  it  was  by  tradition,  its  pristine 
value  and  meaning  were  still  treasured. 

Not  only  the  scholar,  but  the  plain  man,  could 
see  two  things  in  this  book :  first,  that  its  condemna¬ 
tion  of  the  Church  was  no  less  clear  than  the  voice 
of  his  own  conscience;  the  whole  system  which  pre¬ 
sented  itself  as  Christianity  was  refuted  by  the  Book 
which  was  presumably  its  authority;  its  popular 
doctrines,  rites,  practices,  objects  of  devotion,  con- 


76 


GREAT  ISSUES 


ception  of  God,  ideals  of  life,  were  unknown,  and 
implicitly  repudiated,  in  that  Book.  Secondly,  the 
Book  showed  the  original  message  of  Christianity, 
and  behold,  it  was  that  identification  of  religion  and 
morality  for  which  the  conscience  was  crying  out ! 

It  became  apparent,  and  has  remained  apparent 
ever  since,  that  to  repudiate  the  Church  is  not  to 
break  with  Christianity;  it  may,  on  the  contrary, 
be  to  go  back  to  it.  It  is  Christianity  itself  which 
united  religion  and  morality,  and  justified  the  better 
instinct  that  makes  morality  the  criterion  of  religion. 

If  Protestantism  is  a  failure,  as  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth  1  implies  that  it  is  in  America,  and  as  it  would 
seem  to  be  from  the  decay  of  Protestant  Churches 
on  the  Continent,  the  alternative  is  not  a  return  to 
Catholicism,  but  a  return  to  Christianity.  Protes¬ 
tantism  may  have  failed  to  settle  a  final  creed,  or  to 
establish  Church  institutions,  it  may  have  failed  in 
its  cultus  and  in  its  organization,  but  in  one  thing  it 
has  completely  succeeded:  it  has  made  the  return 
to  Catholicism  impossible  for  progressive  nations 
and  for  fearless  lovers  of  truth.  If  it  has  not  success¬ 
fully  presented  the  truth  of  Christianity,  it  has  at 
any  rate  demonstrated  that  the  truth  of  Christianity 
is  very  different  from  Catholic  truth;  and  it  has  made 
an  impression  on  the  thinking  part  of  Europe,  which 
can  never  be  removed,  that  Christianity  means  the 
identification  of  religion  and  morality.  The  idea 

1  Cf.  “Passing  Protestantism  and  Coming  Catholicism,’ ’  by 
Newman  Smyth  (Scribners). 


MORALITY 


77 


that  Clement  VI.,  with  his  systematic  lechery,  could 
by  any  possibility  be  the  vicegerent  of  Christ  on 
earth  has  passed  away  forever  from  Christendom. 
No  dogmatic  assertion,  no  terrors  of  ecclesiastical 
censure,  will  ever  convince  that  growing  part  of  the 
modern  world  which  has  attained  its  freedom,  or 
alter  that  instinctive  major  premiss  which  is  written 
in  the  conscience.  To  the  assertion  that  the  Pope 
was  the  Vicar  of  Christ  it  is  now  a  sufficient  answer: 
“But  he  was  not  good.”  This  Protestantism  has 
done  once  for  all.  Catholicism  has  no  future  unless 
it  alters  its  fundamental  dogma.  The  moral  sense 
of  the  world,  since  Luther,  has  become  stronger 
than  the  Church.  But  a  return  to  Christianity  is 
possible  because  of  the  Book.  The  place  of  morality 
in  the  Bible  is  singular  and  most  interesting.  There 
is  no  exact  parallel  in  any  other  religion  or  literature. 
The  Bible  does  not  confuse  morality  with  religion, 
but  from  first  to  last  it  maintains  the  indissoluble 
union.  In  the  Bible  the  religion  grows,  and  the 
morality  grows,  but  the  tie  between  them  is  so 
close  that  they  grow  together.  Confucius  has  a 
strong  morality,  but  it  has  no  connection  with  reli¬ 
gion;  Mohammed  has  a  strong  religion,  but  it  has 
only  the  weakest  connection  with  morality.1  But 
the  Bible  presents  this  very  peculiar  phenomenon : 

1  Whenever  the  devout  life,  with  its  spiritual  aspirations  and 
fervent  longings,  touches  the  scheme  of  Moslem  theology,  it  must 
bend  and  break.  For  it,  within  Islam,  there  is  no  place,  the 
enormous  handicap  of  the  dogmatic  system  is  too  great”  (“The 
Religious  Attitude  in  Islam,”  by  Professor  Macdonald,  p.  301). 


78 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  religious  ideas  from  the  first  involve  morality, 
and  the  morality  makes  no  pretence  to  any  existence 
independent  of  religion.  The  morality  of  the  New 
Testament  is  not  that  of  the  Old,  nor  is  the  religion 
of  the  New  Testament  that  of  the  Old;  but  the  con¬ 
nection  between  religion  and  morality  is  the  same  in 
both.  In  the  Old  as  in  the  New  the  morality  is 
enforced  by  the  religious  sanction;  in  the  New  as 
in  the  Old  the  religion  is  ethical.  In  each  case  God 
is  the  highest  goodness  known;  in  each  case  obedi¬ 
ence  to  God  means  being  good.  When  new  ideas  of 
God  evolve,  or  when  new  commands  of  God  are 
given,  the  clearer  knowledge  of  God  is  always  a 
raising  of  the  standard  of  morality,  and  likeness  to 
God  in  an  ethical  sense  is  insisted  on  as  the  main 
demand  of  the  religion. 

For  example,  no  passage  takes  us  to  the  heart 
of  the  Jewish  Law  more  rapidly  than  the  summary 
of  the  ceremonial  and  social  regulations  at  the  end 
of  Leviticus.  Amid  much  that  has  become  obsolete 
with  the  evolution  of  moral  ideas,  one  principle 
stands  out  clearly;  it  is  that  of  social  justice.  “Ye 
shall  not  wrong  one  another.”  The  time  has  not 
come  for  extending  the  principle  to  other  nations  or 
to  humanity;  but  for  those  who  are  members  of  the 
one  community  the  duty  of  justice  and  even  of  love 
is  uncompromising.  That  is  the  sum  total  of  moral¬ 
ity.  No  one  is  to  do  to  another  what  he  would  not 
have  done  to  himself.  That  is  the  doctrine  of 
Confucius;  it  is  also  the  law  of  Moses.  But  the 


MORALITY 


79 


distinction  of  the  law  of  Moses  is  in  the  sanction.  If 
the  Confucianist  questions  the  Law,  and  asks,  “  But 
why  must  I  treat  my  neighbour  in  this  way?” 
Confucius  has  no  answer  to  give  unless  it  be  the  pru¬ 
dential  one:  “You  must  treat  your  neighbour  in 
this  way  in  order  that  he  may  treat  you  in  this 
way.”  But  if,  by  power  or  influence,  you  see  how 
you  can  make  your  neighbour  treat  you  well  without 
your  treating  him  well,  the  sanction  is  gone.  The 
sanction  of  the  law  of  Moses,  on  the  other  hand,  lies 
in  the  nature  and  the  rule  of  God:  “Ye  shall  not 
wrong  one  another;  but  thou  shalt  fear  thy  God; 
for  I  am  the  Lord  your  God.”  1  This  is  a  funda¬ 
mental  difference.  It  is  God,  the  final  Authority 
and  unquestioned  Ruler  of  men,  who  requires  this 
treatment  of  one’s  neighbour.  It  is  from  no  pruden¬ 
tial  hope  of  getting  good  from  others  that  you  must 
do  good  to  them.  The  duty  rests  on  the  nature 
and  the  will  of  God.  The  good  one  does  to  others 
from  a  prudential  motive  is  hardly  “good”  in  the 
ethical  sense  at  all.  It  becomes  good  only  when  it  is 
done  with  the  good  motive.  And  the  good  motive 
is  only  furnished  by  the  religious  idea  that  goodness 
is  God,  the  Object  of  worship,  the  Sovereign  to  whom 
obedience  is  due. 

In  the  New  Testament  this  principle  becomes 
both  deeper  and  stronger.  The  goodness  in  the 
Divine  nature  receives  a  fuller  illustration,  and  the 
sanction  contained  in  it  to  induce  goodness  in  men 
is  both  clearer  and  more  cogent. 

1  Lev.  xxv.  17. 


8o 


GREAT  ISSUES 


There  is  a  little  conjunction  in  the  Epistle  to  Titus, 
a  “for”  which,  as  a  pivot,  carries  more  on  it  than, 
perhaps,  any  conjunction  in  the  written  words  of 
men.  It  is  found  in  Titus  ii.  u.  The  life  of  a  strict 
and  lofty  morality  is  enjoined  in  a  few  golden  direc¬ 
tions;  it  is  sanctioned  by  the  revelation  of  God  that 
has  been  made  in  Christ,  the  grace  of  it,  the  promise 
of  it.  Here  in  the  most  concentrated  form  the 
Christian  connection  between  religion  and  morality 
is  expressed.  We  are  required  to  be  good,  and  the 
nature  of  the  required  goodness  is  defined  by  the  fact 
that  God  wishes  to  make  us  good,  and  has  actively 
intervened  in  the  affairs  of  men  in  order  to  effect 
His  purpose.  Possibly  any  ancient  writer  could  have 
summarized  what  ought  to  be  the  character  of  the 
several  ages  and  grades  of  humanity.  In  that  re¬ 
spect  the  New  Testament  does  not  greatly  differ 
from  Seneca  or  Epictetus.  In  that  respect  the 
evolution  of  moral  ideas  may  have  carried  us  to-day 
farther  than  the  writer  of  this  passage.  Mankind 
has  always  felt  that  aged  men  ought  to  be  temperate, 
grave,  sober-minded,  exhibiting  love  and  patience. 
For  aged  women  there  is  no  greater  glory  than  to 
be  reverent  in  demeanour,  refraining  from  slander 
and  wine,  handing  down  to  their  daughters  the  noble 
tradition  of  domestic  order  and  fidelity.  To  make 
the  home  is  still  admittedly  the  first  duty  of  women. 
But  at  this  point  we  are  already  pushed  farther  than 
any  writer  (however  inspired)  of  the  first  century 
could  be.  We  take  into  account  the  women  who  will 


MORALITY 


8l 


never  be  wives,  and  conceive  an  ideal  of  public  ser¬ 
vice  for  them  which  gives  them  their  proper  place 
and  privileges  in  the  commonwealth.  We  still  de¬ 
mand  that  they  should  be  chaste,  but  not  necessarily 
that  they  should  be  “workers  at  home.”  As  to  those 
who  are  married  we  still  desire  them  to  be  kind,  but 
we  should  not  lay  stress  on  “being  in  subjection  to 
their  own  husbands.”  Increasingly  the  married 
relation  must  come  under  the  great  principle,  “By 
love  serve  one  another .”  For  young  men  all  ethical 
codes  can  agree  that  the  master-virtue  is  what  the 
Greeks  call  aaxppoavvrj  —  that  is,  not  the  intellectual 
wisdom  which  makes  a  philosopher,  but  that  judg¬ 
ment,  balance,  and  sobriety  which  form  the  indis¬ 
pensable  condition  of  effectiveness  in  life.  Richard 
FeverePs  heedlessness  is  flanked  by  the  sterile  wit 
of  the  Wise  Youth;  each  is  equally  remote  from  the 
wisdom  which  is  covered  by  the  word  “sober- 
minded.”  Good  works,  right  opinions,  incorrup¬ 
tibility,  dignity,  true  and  strong  speech,  these  are 
admittedly  the  virtues  of  manhood,  the  radiant 
manifestations  of  the  right  moral  conditions.  Pass¬ 
ing  to  the  directions  for  servants,  we  are  again  con¬ 
scious  of  the  immense  forward  thrust  of  our  ethical 
ideals.  Servants,  in  the  sense  of  this  passage,  i.e., 
slaves,  no  longer  exist  in  Christendom  —  at  least,  in 
Protestant  Christendom.1  But  for  the  milder  rela- 

1  The  practical  slavery  in  Angola,  and  especially  in  S.  Thome 
and  Principe,  forbids  us  to  say  that  no  Christian  power  tolerates 
slavery. 


82 


GREAT  ISSUES 


tion  of  employer  and  employed,  it  is  impossible  to 
state  more  effectively  the  ethical  idea  of  service  to  an 
employer — “not  gainsaying,  not  purloining,  but 
showing  all  good  fidelity.”  Liberty  is  essential  to  a 
complete  morality;  but  the  liberty  of  a  good  servant 
may  be  just  as  genuine  as  the  liberty  of  a  master  or 
of  a  king.  For  liberty  is  not  emancipation  from  duty 
to  others,  but  rather  the  opportunity  to  render  that 
service  effectively.  The  master  is  bound  by  his 
obligation  to  the  State,  and  even  to  his  servant; 
the  king  is  bound  by  his  duty  to  the  laws  and  to  his 
people.  It  has,  therefore,  always  been  perceived 
that  a  servant  may  ethically  be  as  complete  and  as 
noble  as  any  one  else.  And  there  is  no  fairer  example 
of  a  true  and  even  great  character  than  one  who  by 
respect,  by  honesty,  and  by  fidelity  identifies  himself 
with  the  interests  of  a  master  or  a  family.  Very 
suitably  this  type  of  moral  life  is  regarded  in  a  special 
degree  as  “adorning  the  doctrine  of  God  our  Saviour 
in  all  things.” 

But  now  we  come  to  the  point.  This  moral  life, 
briefly  but  sufficiently  sketched  for  all  ages  and  de¬ 
grees,  hinges  upon  the  religious  truth  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  revelation.  This  is  the  force  of  the  potent  for. 
The  manifestation  of  Christ  is  presented  as  the  mo¬ 
tive  and  sanction  for  all  details  of  good  and  heroic 
conduct.  Let  a  child’s  remark  light  up  the  posi¬ 
tion.  She  was  a  very  little  girl;  two  pieces  of  cake 
were  brought  in  for  the  two  children,  herself  and  her 
brother;  she,  after  a  moment’s  pause,  selected  the 


MORALITY 


83 


smaller.  Evening  came  and  the  child’s  prayers. 
That  little  choice  had  filled  the  child’s  mind  during 
the  day,  and  now  she  offered  an  explanation  to  her 
mother.  “  Do  you  know  why  I  took  the  little  piece  ?  ” 
“Why?”  “’Cos  I  remembered  Jesus  died.”  That 
is  the  secret  of  Christian  morality,  as  it  is  expressed 
in  this  passage,  and  as  it  has  worked  out  ever  since 
the  passage  was  written. 

“ For  the  grace  of  God  hath  appeared  bringing 
salvation  to  all  men,  instructing  us  to  the  intent  that, 
denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we  should 
live  soberly  and  righteously  and  godly  in  this  present 
world,  looking  for  the  blessed  hope  and  appearing 
of  the  glory  of  our  great  God  and  Saviour,  Jesus 
Christ;  who  gave  Himself  for  us,  that  He  might  re¬ 
deem  us  from  all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  Himself 
a  people  for  His  own  possession,  zealous  of  good 
works.” 

The  return  to  Christianity  is  not  impossible,  nay 
to  the  eye  of  faith  it  seems  as  good  as  certain.  So 
great  an  idea,  an  idea  so  foreign  to  man  in  his  primi¬ 
tive  state,  as  the  intimate  identification  of  morality 
and  religion,  could  hardly  take  possession  of  mankind 
at  a  bound.  Some  millennia  of  human  evolution  oc¬ 
curred  before  the  idea  was  conceived.  We  are  able 
in  the  Bible  to  trace  at  least  a  thousand  years  of  the 
germination  of  the  idea.  In  Christ  it  was  above  the 
surface  of  the  soil,  but,  theoretically  secure,  it  has 
pushed  for  nigh  two  millennia  more  against  the  super¬ 
incumbent  obstacles.  The  old  Paganism,  and  even 


84 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  old  Judaism,  were  strong.  The  whole  Roman 
Empire  attempted  to  crush  it,  or  rather  crushed,  in 
attempting  to  exploit,  it.  The  Pontifex  Maximus  of 
the  Roman  Empire  is  still  the  Pope.  The  prelates 
and  priests  of  Christendom  still  exercise  their  func¬ 
tions  in  the  similitude  of  the  older  order.  Innumer¬ 
able  traditions,  superstitions,  and  conventions  pre¬ 
vent  men  from  recognizing  the  identity  of  morality 
and  religion  which  in  Christ  was  once  for  all  estab¬ 
lished.  In  Protestantism  the  Church  twitched  one 
arm  free  from  her  ancient  bondage.  It  was  libera¬ 
tion,  but  not  yet  emancipation.  Emancipation  yet 
lies  in  the  future.  It  will  come,  because  it  is  implied 
in  the  Christian  truth,  it  is  even  explicit  in  the 
Christian  documents.  The  world  is  to  discover 
that  Christian  morality  is  inseparable  from  the 
Christian  religion,  and  that  Christianity  is  the  reve¬ 
lation  of  a  perfect  goodness  in  God  for  the  purpose 
of  producing  perfect  goodness  in  men.  “Ye  shall 
be  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect.” 

Sometimes  we  light  upon  a  character  which  gives 
large  hints  of  perfection,  and  even  offers  reminis¬ 
cences  of  Christ,  a  character  singularly  unlike  the 
ideal  of  ancient  morals,  unlike  Plato’s  philosopher 
hiding  from  the  blast  of  reality  under  the  wall  of 
idealism,  unlike  Aristotle’s  picture  of  the  magnani¬ 
mous  man,  strong,  self-centred,  self-conscious,  dig¬ 
nified,  unlike  even  the  pensive  stoicism  of  M.  Aure¬ 
lius.  This  Christian  character,  embodiment  of  the 
Christian  morality,  product  of  the  Christian  revela- 


MORALITY 


85 


tion,  being  unique  in  human  experience,  the  fine 
flower  of  millennial  evolution,  affords  a  hope  of 
what  is  yet  to  be.  Such,  some  day,  all  men  will  be. 

It  was  my  lot  to  know  one  such  man.  He  endeared 
himself  to  all  who  knew  him,  and  undesignedly  won 
a  reputation  wide  as  the  English-speaking  race,  and 
lasting,  we  may  surmise,  as  that  of  all  saints.  This 
was  Henry  Drummond,  of  whom  more  than  one 
averred  that  to  be  with  him  was  to  receive  a  singular 
impression  of  what  manner  of  man  Christ  Himself 
might  have  been  in  the  days  of  His  flesh.  If  that  is 
too  strong  a  mode  of  speech,  it  is  at  least  no  exaggera¬ 
tion  to  say  that,  as  his  character  was  produced  by  an 
intimacy  with  Christ,  so  it  was  one  which  Christ 
would  have  fully  approved.  We  could  easily  imagine 
Christ  saying  of  him:  “This  is  My  beloved  brother, 
in  whom  I  am  well  pleased.”  Happily  his  books 
remain  behind  to  show  that  things  spoken  of  him  in 
love  and  gratitude  are  not  impossible.  “Natural 
Law  in  the  Spiritual  World”  flashed  like  a  meteor 
across  the  sky  in  the  eighties.  Every  one  read  it. 
It  had  the  vogue  which  a  novel  of  Miss  Corelli’s 
would  have  in  our  day.  The  attempt  to  trace  the 
same  principle  at  work  in  the  physical  and  in  the  reli¬ 
gious  spheres  was  condemned  as  unorthodox,  but  it 
was  not  shown  to  be  untrue.  The  germ  of  thought 
then  sown  has  developed.  We  are  more  and  more 
inclined  to  seek  for  such  a  monistic  interpretation  of 
the  universe.  But  the  breach  with  orthodoxy  in  the 
interests  of  faith  was  characteristic  of  Drummond  as 


86 


GREAT  ISSUES 


it  was  of  his  Lord.  There  comes  back  to  me  a 
memorable  episode  in  Harvard  fifteen  years  ago. 
The  secretaries  of  the  Y.M.C.A.’s  from  all  over  the 
United  States  were  met  to  confer,  and  the  dis¬ 
tinguished  visitor  was  there  to  answer  their  questions. 
One  secretary  from  the  West,  a  champion  of  ortho¬ 
doxy,  seeking  encouragement  and  countenance  for 
his  conflict  with  unbelief,  rose  and  said:  “Professor 
Drummond,  I  should  like  to  ask  you  what  you  would 
say  if  a  man  came  to  you  and  said  that  he  did  not 
believe  everything  that  is  stated  in  the  Bible  ?” 
The  quiet,  cultured  voice,  and  still  more  the  smiling 
face  and  restful  eyes,  replied,  “I  should  say  that  I 
agree  with  him.”  It  was  as  if  a  bombshell  had  ex¬ 
ploded  in  the  room.  No  further  explanation  was 
given.  It  was  just  like  those  pregnant,  far-reaching 
words  of  Jesus,  which  can  never  be  forgotten  and 
can  never  cease  to  operate. 

Strange  to  say,  the  brochure  “The  Greatest  Thing 
in  the  World”  was  also  condemned  by  the  ortho¬ 
doxy  of  the  time.  To  count  Love  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world  shocked  religious  people,  to  whom 
love  was  secondary.  But  it  could  not  be  denied  that 
the  writer  had  Christ  on  his  side,  and  even  Paul  and 
the  other  Apostles.  Perhaps  no  book  ever  had  a 
wider  or  more  effective  circulation.  If  we  may  com¬ 
pare  it  with  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility  which 
had  been  propounded  by  an  Ecumenical  Council 
fourteen  years  before,  we  may  say  that,  while  the 
influence  of  the  brochure  was  almost  as  wide  as  the 


MORALITY 


87 


dogma,  it  differed  from  the  dogma  in  this :  that  the 
dogma  was  the  death-blow  of  Roman  Catholicism, 
and  the  brochure  was  the  herald  of  Christian  Catholi¬ 
cism. 

I  am  not  attempting  to  appraise  the  works  of 
Henry  Drummond,  I  am  only  drawing  the  portrait 
of  the  man;  but  it  is  impossible  to  pass  by  that 
scientific  work,  which  was  also  a  poem,  that  expan¬ 
sion  of  1  Corinthians  xiii.  in  terms  of  modern  sci¬ 
ence,  and  the  fullest  knowledge  we  have  as  yet  gained 
of  man  and  of  the  universe,  “The  Ascent  of  Man.” 
Here  the  world  saw  what  gain  there  is  in  having  its 
men  of  science  Christian.  Haeckel  can  give  the 
facts  of  evolution,  but  he  is  totally  unable  to  interpret 
them.  He  handles  the  riddle  of  the  universe  on  the 
plea  of  solving  it ;  but  he  leaves  it  not  only  insoluble, 
but  disheartening.  He  borders  on  pessimism.  The 
universe,  as  he  sees  it,  has  no  reason  for  existence, 
and  no  goal,  beyond  the  transitory  sensations  of 
existing  organisms.  Drummond  does  not  discover 
the  facts,  he  only  knows  them  as  discovered ;  but  he 
interprets  them.  Running  through  the  whole  evolu¬ 
tionary  process  he  finds  Love.  Darwin  dwelt  on 
the  struggle  for  existence  as  the  determining  factor 
in  organic  evolution.  Drummond  dwelt  on  the 
equally  indisputable  fact,  the  struggle  for  the  life  of 
others.  Was  not  mother-love,  emerging  in  even  the 
lowest  organisms,  and  rising  in  the  highest  to  realms 
of  religion  and  eternity,  as  constant  and  incontestable 
a  phenomenon  of  world-experience? 


88 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Working  on  this  line,  the  man  of  science,  who  is 
also  the  seer,  sees  the  universe  as  not  unintelligible 
nor  aimless.  Love  is  creation’s  final  law.  The 
whole  process  is  interpreted,  science  repeats  in  her 
own  way  the  assertion  of  theology  that  God  is  Love. 
It  becomes  probable  even  from  the  constitution  of 
things  and  from  the  evolution  of  all  life,  that  each 
man’s  life  is  his  chance  of  learning  love,  what  love  is, 
and  how  it  came  to  be. 

But  to  return  to  the  writer  of  the  books.  He  drew 
around  him  the  young  manhood  of  Edinburgh.  The 
students  were  at  home  with  him.  From  him  Chris¬ 
tianity  came  without  offence,  and  was  established, 
because  it  was  accurately  exemplified  in  his  person. 
In  London  he  spoke  to  audiences  of  the  wealthy  and 
cultivated.  The  same  convincing  power  attended 
his  words. 

One  of  his  peculiarities  was  to  dress  with  the 
utmost  nicety;  no  man  of  fashion  would  have  felt 
ashamed  to  walk  with  him  in  the  Mall.  I  do  not 
know  whether  he  saw  a  symbolic  meaning  in  the 
seamless  coat  which  Jesus  wore.  But  it  was  as 
native  to  him  to  bear  distinction  in  dress  and  de¬ 
meanour  as  it  was  impossible  that  the  Divine 
characteristics  of  Christ  should  be  hid.  The  tall, 
erect  figure,  faultlessly  dressed,  the  light  hair,  thrown 
back,  the  deep-set  burning  eyes,  the  sensitive,  refined 
features,  the  quiet  manner,  the  musical  voice,  the 
easy  flow  of  beautiful  language,  the  picturesqueness 
of  thought,  the  sense  of  truth,  the  subdued  emotion, 


MORALITY 


89 


made  a  personality  that  arrested  and  enchained 
attention.  One  involuntarily  said,  “Such  should 
all  men  be.”  I  remember  that  there  was  in  him  a 
surprising  serenity.  He  worked  hard,  he  had  an 
overwhelming  burden  of  engagements,  he  was  in 
ever-growing  demand.  But  he  was  never  in  a  hurry. 
He  seemed  to  have  full  leisure  for  you.  He  was 
equally  ready  to  hear  and  to  speak.  The  feeling  he 
gave  you  was  that,  though  he  was  for  the  moment 
walking  and  living  in  time,  he  came  out  of  eternity. 
He  had  the  bearing  and  the  manners  of  that  unhast¬ 
ing  life. 

No  man  in  so  brief  a  life  ever  impressed  the  world 
more  widely  or  effected  more.  Great  multitudes 
followed  him  and  found  in  him  their  leader  and 
teacher.  But  he  gave  you  no  sense  of  effort :  it  was 
not  as  if  he  did  anything,  but  rather  as  if  God  was 
working  in  him  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good  pleas¬ 
ure.  As  Ian  Maclaren  said:  “From  first  to  last  he 
was  guided  by  an  inner  light  which  never  led  him 
astray,  and  in  the  afterglow  his  whole  life  is  a  sim¬ 
ple  and  perfect  harmony.”  1  Another  friend,  who 
knew  him  well,  Dr.  Robertson  Nicoll,  confirms  the 
impression  which  was  made  on  me,  and  sheds  further 
light  on  the  character.  In  the  memorial  sketch  occur 
these  words:  “He  wrote  brightly  and  swiftly,  and 
would  have  made  an  excellent  journalist.  But 
everything  he  published  was  elaborated  with  the  most 
scrupulous  care.  I  have  never  seen  manuscripts 

1  “The  Ideal  Life/’  p.  36. 


9° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


so  carefully  revised  as  his.  All  he  did  was  appar¬ 
ently  done  with  ease,  but  there  was  immense  labour 
behind  it.  Although  in  orders,  he  used  neither  the 
title  nor  the  dress  that  go  with  them,  but  preferred 
to  regard  himself  as  a  layman.  He  had  a  deep  sense 
of  the  value  of  the  Church  and  its  work,  but  I  think 
was  not  himself  connected  with  any  Church,  and 
never  attended  public  worship  unless  he  tho  ght  the 
preacher  had  some  lesson  for  him.  He  seemed  to 
be  invariably  in  good  spirits  an  invariably  disen¬ 
gaged.  He  was  always  ready  for  any  and  every  office 
of  friendship.  It  should  be  said  that  though  few 
men  were  more  criticised  or  misconceived,  he  him¬ 
self  never  wrote  an  unkind  word  about  any  one, 
never  retaliated,  never  bore  malice,  and  could  do 
full  justice  to  the  abilities  and  character  of  his  oppo¬ 
nents.  I  have  just  heard  that  he  exerted  himself 
privately  to  secure  an  appointment  for  one  of  his 
most  trenchant  critics,  and  was  successful.”  1 

Here  is  the  finished  picture  of  a  Christian;  here 
are  gleams  and  outlines,  appearing  not  altogether 
fitfully  and  disconnectedly,  of  the  character  of  Jesus 
Himself.  No  treatise  on  ethics  could  convey  so 
completely  what  a  Christian  character  is  as  this 
concrete  example  of  a  Christian  man.  In  one  thing 
alone  does  the  copy  fall  short  of  the  original.  It 
was  given  to  Drummond  to  live  for  men.  This  he 
did  with  a  good  will.  One  might  even  say  that  in  a 
bright  and  sunny  sense  he  gave  himself  for  us.  But 

1  “The  Ideal  Life,”  p.  18. 


MORALITY 


91 


the  redemptive  death  of  Jesus  he  was  not  able  to 
imitate.  Many  a  martyr  for  truth  or  in  the  mission- 
field  has  been  permitted  to  imitate  more  closely  that 
redemptive  death.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say, 
for  instance,  that  Livingstone  by  his  death  at  Ilala 
has  redeemed  the  dark  continent.  Men  who  fell 
far  short  of  Drummond’s  ideal  character  have  in 
their  deaths  been  allowed  to  reproduce,  in  a  limited 
and  human  degree,  the  work  of  Christ’s  Cross. 
Drummond  lived  the  life,  and  taught  it  by  living.it. 
He  was  one  who  involuntarily  suggested  Christ. 
And  yet  the  manner  of  his  death  was  in  harmony 
with  the  life  and  the  general  impression  that  he  made. 
With  Dr.  Nicoll’s  words  I  will  close  this  adumbra¬ 
tion  of  the  character  which  illustrates  the  identity  of 
religion  and  morality : 

“The  end  came  suddenly,  from  failure  of  the  heart. 
Those  with  him  received  only  a  few  hours’  warning 
of  his  critical  condition.  It  was  not  like  death.  He 
lay  on  his  couch  in  the  drawing-room,  and  passed 
away  in  his  sleep,  with  the  sun  shining  in  and  the 
birds  singing  at  the  open  window.  ...  It  recalled 
what  he  himself  said  of  a  friend’s  death:  putting 
by  the  well-worn  tools  without  a  sigh,  and  expecting 
elsewhere  better  work  to  do.” 


CHAPTER  IV 


POLITICS 

The  word  “politics”  is  so  ambiguous  and  covers 
so  many  varying  notions  that  it  may  be  prudent  to 
offer  a  definition  of  it,  in  order  to  save  the  reader  the 
vexation  of  not  knowing  what  is  the  subject  of  dis¬ 
cussion.  The  term  is  here  used  in  this  sense:  the 
application  of  a  man’s  religion  to  the  life  of  the  State. 
It  may  be  objected  that  such  a  definition  begs  the 
question  in  some  of  the  issues  which  will  be  raised. 
Perhaps  it  does.  It  may  seem  to  imply  that  if  a 
man  has  no  religion  he  can  have  no  politics,  which 
certainly  would  seem  to  be  a  paradox.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that,  according  to  the  present  writer’s 
view,  every  one  must  have  a  religion;  every  one 
must  have  some  idea  of  the  Power  to  which  we  owe 
our  existence,  must  have  some  mental  attitude 
towards  the  Power,  and  must  shape  the  conduct  of 
life  accordingly.  This  view  we  have  of  the  Power 
behind  and  above  things,  our  attitude  towards  It  — 
or  Him  —  and  the  conduct  which  results  therefrom, 
is  our  religion.  Now,  according  to  the  definition, 
politics  is  the  application  of  this  religious  principle 
in  us  to  the  life  of  the  State.  I  am  not  pleased  with 

92 


POLITICS 


93 


this  definition  because  it  is  my  own,  but  because, 
whatever  may  be  said  against  it,  it  is  pregnant  and 
leads  to  results.  With  the  reader’s  permission, 
therefore,  I  will  spend  a  little  time  on  its  defence. 

Aristotle  wrote  his  “Politics”  as  the  necessary 
sequel  to  his  “Ethics.”  The  ethical  life  which  he 
delineated  could  only  be  lived  in  a  polis  (7 ro\t?)  or 
State.  The  political  organism  not  only  resulted 
from  the  ethical  principles,  but  was  in  its  turn  the 
essential  condition  of  their  working.  Jowett  passes 
on  Aristotle  the  criticism  that  he  did  not  sufficiently 
distinguish  between  ethics  and  politics.  With  the 
modern  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  the  difficulty  is  to 
connect  the  two.  In  some  modern  States  politics 
would  seem  to  be  the  negative  of  ethics.  And  even 
in  the  best  of  modern  States  many  persons  would 
seriously  maintain  that  a  man  can  be  morally  good 
and  have  nothing  to  do  with  politics  at  all.  But 
Aristotle  defined  man  as  “a  political  animal,”  not 
remembering  that  several  species  of  insects,  such  as 
ants  and  bees,  would  come  under  the  same  defini¬ 
tion.  His  good  man  was  before  all  things  the  citizen 
of  a  good  State ;  the  good  man’s  goodness  was  largely 
the  excellence  of  his  life  as  a  citizen. 

Now,  our  definition  affirms  the  same  relation 
between  religion  and  politics  that  Aristotle  main¬ 
tained  between  ethics  and  politics.  Aristotle  would 
not  quarrel  with  the  contention,  for  with  him,  as  with 
modern  ethical  societies,  ethics  takes  the  place  of 
religion.  Of  this  truth  God  is  a  witness  to  us,  for 


94 


GREAT  ISSUES 


He  is  happy  in  His  own  nature.  In  like  manner  the 
State  which  is  happiest  is  morally  best  and  wisest; 
and  the  courage,  justice,  and  wisdom  of  a  State  are 
the  same  qualities  which  make  a  brave,  just,  and  wise 
man.1  For  Aristotle  ethics  is  religion.  We  have 
maintained  that  ethics  and  religion  are  perfectly 
distinct,  and  yet  must  be  indissolubly  united;  we 
do  not,  therefore,  part  company  with  Aristotle  in 
claiming  that  politics  is  the  application  of  religion 
to  the  life  of  the  State;  for  us  ethics  can  only  be 
applied  to  the  State  as  an  inseparable  part  of  reli¬ 
gion.  If  our  religion  is  noble  and  worthy,  our  poli¬ 
tics  will  profit  by  its  nobility  and  worth;  if  our 
religion  is  base,  merely  materialistic  and  sensual, 
selfish  and  practically  godless,  our  political  ideals 
and  activities  must  be  of  the  same  kind. 

It  will  be  observed  that  we  do  not  here  mean  by 
religion  the  Christian  or  any  other  particular  religion. 
The  term  is  used  in  the  widest  sense.  Whatever 
our  religion  may  be,  Theism  or  Atheism,  Chris¬ 
tianity  or  Buddhism,  Gnosticism  or  Agnosticism,  our 
politics  is  the  application  of  this  religion  to  the  life  of 
the  State.  Our  most  general  and  most  fundamental 
ideas  of  life,  our  idea  of  the  Being  that  is  responsible 
for  our  being,  our  sense  of  relation  with  that  Grand 

A*. 

Etre ,  our  practical  conduct  resulting  from  the  rela¬ 
tion,  must  colour  all  our  action  as  citizens  of  the 
country  to  which  we  belong.  If  we  are  Christians, 
our  politics  must  be  Christian.  If  we  are  atheists, 


1  Arist.  Pol.  vii.  i,  2. 


POLITICS 


95 


our  politics  must  be  atheistic.  Our  view  of  the 
State,  our  sense  of  duty  to  it,  our  action  in  it,  must 
be  determined  by  our  religion,  such  as  it  is. 

Now,  let  it  not  be  deemed  scholastic  and  affected 
to  appeal  in  these  enlightened  times  to  the  author¬ 
ity  of  Aristotle.  If  that  authority  has  been  abused 
in  the  arid  discussions  of  mediaeval  theology,  it  is 
not  therefore  impaired.  His  is  the  view  which  ante¬ 
dates  the  age  of  specialists.  He  sees  things  in  their 
connection,  and  never  forgets  that  they  are  essen¬ 
tially  connected.  He  “  anticipates  by  his  great  power 
of  reflection  the  lessons  which  the  experience  of  ages 
has  taught  the  modern  world,”  says  Jowett;  and  per¬ 
haps  he  anticipates  by  the  same  power  some  things 
which  the  modern  world  has  yet  to  learn.  When, 
therefore,  he  establishes  the  indissoluble  connection 
between  ethics  and  politics,  or  when  he  defines  man 
as  a  political  animal,  our  wise  course  is  to  accept 
the  principles,  and  only  to  modify  them  by  those 
enlargements  of  knowledge  and  insight  which  have 
resulted  from  the  development  of  two  thousand  years. 
By  ethics  we  now  must  mean  that  wedded  pair  of 
religion  and  ethics  which  God  has  at  length  joined 
together  so  that  no  man  may  put  them  asunder. 
And  by  a  “  political  animal”  we  must  mean  an  animal 
who  is  rational  and  religious,  an  individual  as  well 
as  the  unit  of  a  community,  a  personality  as  well  as 
the  member  of  a  State.  Religion  and  personality 
are  ideas  which  have  acquired  a  new  and  a  deeper 
meaning  since  the  days  of  Aristotle,  and  by  this 


96 


GREAT  ISSUES 


new  and  deeper  meaning  we  modify  the  dicta  of 
the  “  master  of  those  who  know.” 

If,  then,  our  dogmatic  definition  of  politics  may 
be  allowed,  let  us  proceed  with  the  discussion. 
The  first  point  is  to  establish  the  duty  incumbent 
on  every  man  —  and  in  this  connection  man  includes 
woman 1  —  to  play  a  political  part.  The  second 
point  is  to  discuss  the  political  principles  which  should 
be  accepted  by  all,  and  those  on  which  a  legitimate 
difference  of  opinion  may  exist. 

Finally,  an  attempt  must  be  made  to  sketch  in 
the  concrete  the  ideal  politician;  for  in  politics 
example  tells  more  than  abstract  reasoning. 

“Grau,  theurer  freund,  ist  all  Theorie 
Und  grun  des  Lebens  goldnerbaum.” 

i.  It  must  be  admitted  that  both  in  ancient  phi¬ 
losophy  and  in  modem  religion  some  countenance 
can  be  found  for  those  who  decide  to  recede  from 
the  conflicts  and  disappointments  of  political  activity. 
Plato’s  philosopher  is  seen  cowering  under  the  wall 
for  protection  from  the  rude  storm  of  practical  life. 
He  decides  frankly  for  the  speculative  as  against  the 
practical.  When  by  good  fortune  his  principles 
were  carried  out  in  an  actual  State  the  result  was  a 
tyranny.  On  such  an  experience  the  thinker  may 
claim  an  exemption  from  political  duty.  He  may 

1  In  the  early  Acts  which  gave  the  franchise  to  men  the  Latin 
word  homo  meant  ‘‘human  being,”  manor  woman.  Accordingly, 
in  Plantagenet  days  women  had  the  vote. 


POLITICS 


97 


let  the  storm  of  contested  elections  pass  by  him 
unheeded,  as  Hegel  quietly  completed  his  great 
philosophical  work  at  Jena  while  the  battle  which 
shook  the  world  was  raging  at  its  gates;  he  may 
abjure  the  newspapers  in  favour  of  the  established 
realities  of  literature  and  science.  But  be  it  ob¬ 
served,  in  the  modern  State  at  least,  this  desertion 
is  ignoble;  it  is  not  the  less  selfishness  because  the 
self  served  is  the  higher  and  ideal  self. 

One  of  the  noblest  men  whom  it  has  been  my  lot 
to  know  was  Thomas  Hill  Green.  He  was  a  phi¬ 
losopher,  a  Hegelian,  who  by  his  power  of  abstract 
reasoning  exercised  a  kind  of  spell  over  the  more 
thoughtful  minds  in  Oxford  in  the  early  eighties. 
Shy  and  reserved  by  nature,  he  might  well  have 
excused  himself,  as  university  people  in  Oxford 
usually  do,  from  the  strife  and  turmoil  of  affairs. 
But  by  the  inner  principle  of  his  ethics  and  of  his 
religion  —  for  him  the  two  were  strictly  identified 
—  he  wras  driven  to  throw  himself,  not  only  into  the 
politics  of  the  State,  but  even  into  the  municipal 
politics  of  the  city.  It  was  an  instructive  spectacle 
to  see  the  man,  whose  every  lineament  and  deep-set 
eyes  confessed  the  thinker  and  the  recluse,  coming 
as  a  simple  citizen  into  the  council,  among  tradesmen 
and  others,  whose  readier  speech  and  familiarity 
with  business  gave  them  an  apparent  superiority 
over  the  scholar  and  the  philosopher.  But  owing 
largely  to  this  fulfilment  of  an  irksome  duty,  his 
philosophy,  remote  and  abstract  as  it  seemed,  ac- 


H 


98 


GREAT  ISSUES 


quired  hands  and  feet ;  it  gripped  men,  and  it  carried 
them  forward.  Unlike  the  philosophies  of  cloistered 
schools,  it  was  the  making  of  men,  of  leaders,  in 
economics,  in  the  State,  and  in  the  Church.  No 
one  had  less  natural  adaptation  for  political  life, 
but  the  very  effort  which  it  demanded  of  him  made 
him  the  man  he  was.  Platonic  in  philosophy,  he 
was  as  a  citizen  Aristotelian. 

Not  only  has  philosophy  sometimes  encouraged 
political  abstention,  but  again  and  again  religion, 
and  even  a  nominal  Christianity,  has  fostered  the 
same  cloistral  indolence.  Very  early  the  cold  shadow 
of  monasticism  was  cast  by  Buddhism  upon  the 
Christian  world.  The  anchorite  withdrew  from 
men;  the  coenobite  withdrew  from  the  world  in  com¬ 
pany  with  others.  But  each  of  them  renounced  the 
part  of  the  citizen,  and  interpreted  the  application 
of  religion  to  politics  as  a  duty  to  keep  out  of  politics 
altogether.  On  the  plea  of  saving  their  own  souls 
—  for  the  monastic  life  never,  except  incidentally, 
had  any  nobler  motive  than  self-preservation  — 
they  left  the  wicked  world  to  perish.  They  ignored 
politics,  until,  with  growing  wealth  and  power, 
they  meddled  with  the  State,  to  buttress  their  own 
privileges.  Possibly  no  single  cause  has  done  more 
to  prevent  the  Christianizing  of  the  State,  and, 
from  a  Christian  point  of  view,  the  salvation  of  the 
world,  than  this  wholesale  desertion,  this  grand 
refusal  made  by  generation  after  generation  of  the 
pious.  The  “ religious,”  as  they  are  called  by 


POLITICS 


99 


Catholics,  are  they  who  have  left  the  world,  they  who 
decline  the  duty  of  citizens  and  make  it  their  boast 
that  they  are  dead  to  this  world  and  alive  only  to  the 
world  beyond. 

It  is  the  intrinsic  cowardice  and  the  blind  delu¬ 
sions  of  this  choice  which  have  combined  to  make 
conventual  establishments  a  gangrene  in  the  State. 
The  great  Catholic  countries,  Italy,  France,  and 
even  Spain,  have  been  compelled  in  self-defence 
to  abolish  or  to  reduce  these  establishments.  The 
dissolution  of  the  monasteries  is  everywhere  the 
signal  for  recovery  from  the  sleeping-sickness  of 
medievalism ;  the  recrudescence  of  conventual 
institutions  is  the  sure  sign  of  disease  and  decay. 
Men  and  women  educated  by  monks  and  nuns 
can  hardly  be  good  citizens ;  the  disease  of  the  great 
delusion  and  the  great  refusal  is  infiltrated  into  the 
scholar  from  the  teacher. 

The  Reformation,  at  least  for  a  time,  saved 
Europe  from  this  deep-seated  disease.  “No  life 
is  more  worldly  than  a  Christian’s,”  said  Luther. 
The  Christian  is  in  the  world,  as  Christ  was  in  the 
world,  to  save  it.  He  is  here  to  follow  Christ.  No 
one  by  following  Christ  can  arrive  at  seclusion  from 
life.  He  went  by  all  the  crowded  ways  of  healing 
and  teaching,  through  all  the  activities  of  beneficence, 
not  to  a  cloister,  but  to  a  cross.  Oddly  enough, 
one  of  the  vagaries  of  the  recluse  has  been  to  think 
that  he  could  imitate  Christ  by  having  himself 
nailed  to  a  cross.  But  to  go  from  the  morbid  fancies 


IOO 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  cell  to  the  self-immolation  of  crucifixion  is 
not  to  follow  Christ.  He  reached  the  cross  by  His 
public  life  and  service,  and  especially  by  an  ethical 
collision  with  the  usurping  authority  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment  of  His  day.  To  follow  Christ  would,  for  the 
monk,  be  to  leave  the  cloister,  to  throw  himself  into 
the  life  and  service  of  his  time,  and  by  such  self- 
forgetting  toil  to  face  the  crucifixion  which,  it  may  be, 
awaits  every  one  who  loves  men  unto  death. 

The  disease  of  monasticism,  however,  is  not  cured 
by  the  Reformation.  Even  amongst  the  ultra- 
montanes  of  Protestantism  the  idea  perpetually 
recurs  that  spirituality  is  gained  only  by  renouncing 
all  political  duties.  There  are  zealots  who  hold  it  a 
sin  to  vote  at  an  election,  or  even  to  read  a  paper. 
Under  the  illusion  that  the  world  is  the  realm  and 
property  of  the  devil,  they  will  take  no  part  in  its 
management.  This  abstention  may  be  more  respect¬ 
able  than  that  of  many  who  decline  political  duty 
from  sheer  indolence  and  frivolity;  but  it  is  more 
to  be  regretted,  for  while  the  frivolous  and  ignorant 
do  in  a  sense  serve  their  country  by  keeping  their 
hands  off  the  sacred  ark  of  her  covenant,  these 
serious  abstainers  are  precisely  the  people  who,  if 
they  would  bring  their  ethical  earnestness  and  their 
religious  conviction  to  bear  upon  the  practical  ques¬ 
tions  of  legislation  and  government,  might  do  more 
than  any  others  to  reform  abuses  and  to  ennoble  the 
community.  It  were  worth  while,  therefore,  to 
take  all  pains  to  convert  and  to  win  them. 


POLITICS 


IOI 


In  a  Greek  State  it  was,  Aristotle  tells  us,  often 
a  law  that  if  a  stasis,  or  revolution,  occurred,  every 
one  must  take  sides  on  pain  of  banishment.  The 
wisdom  of  Aristotle  here  again  comes  to  our  aid. 
On  political  issues  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  to 
understand  and  to  take  sides.  The  first  thing  is 
not  to  decide  which  side  ought  to  be  taken,  but  to 
decide  to  take  one  side  or  the  other,  convinced  that 
abstention  is  treachery  to  the  community. 

Irresolute  minds  may  object  that  it  is  difficult 
to  decide  which  view  or  party  is  right,  and  may 
excuse  themselves  from  political  claims  by  a  con¬ 
scientious  indecision.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  excuse  is  sophistical.  It  may  not  be  possible 
to  decide  which  party  is  right;  but  it  is  by  the  con¬ 
flict  of  parties  that  the  right  is  reached.  To  decline 
the  combat  and  let  the  case  go  by  default  is  to  leave 
out  an  important  element  in  the  discovery  of  the 
right.  Parliament  is  aptly  described  as  a  high 
court.  Within  its  walls  the  case  is  stated;  Govern¬ 
ment  and  Opposition  are  the  counsel  on  either  side. 
The  nation  occupies  the  tribunal  and  brings  in  the 
verdict.  The  citizen  is  not  asked  to  be  infallible, 
he  is  only  required  to  do  his  best  in  the  working  of 
the  machine  by  which  the  results  are  ground  out. 
He  is  required  not  to  shirk.  The  antagonism  of 
parties  is  merely  a  device;  it  must  not  decide  us. 
Truth  is  not  in  either  side,  but  is  the  resultant  of  the 
conflicting  forces.  Thus  there  is  only  an  apparent 
paradox  in  the  common  spectacle  of  two  politicians, 


102 


GREAT  ISSUES 


equally  honest,  equally  religious,  equally  prayerful, 
taking  opposite  sides  and  tilting  at  each  other  with 
the  ardour  of  conviction. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Home  Rule  fight  the  cham¬ 
pions  on  either  side,  pitted  against  each  other  in 
unflinching  antagonism,  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  author 
of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  and  Colonel  Saunderson, 
the  leader  of  the  Ulster  Orangemen,  were  both  in¬ 
tensely  religious.  Of  each  of  them  it  is  known 
that  he  never  made  a  speech  in  the  House  without 
silently  lifting  up  his  heart  to  God  for  guidance  and 
help.  The  one  argued  for  Home  Rule  with  a  pas¬ 
sion  of  pity  for  Ireland,  with  a  wide  knowledge  of 
public  affairs,  with  a  command  of  the  most  copious 
and  persuasive  eloquence  that  ever  led  the  House  or 
fascinated  the  country.  The  other  strove  against 
Home  Rule  with  an  artillery  of  wit  and  invective, 
raillery  and  passion,  which  kept  his  hearers  in 
laughter  and  his  friends  in  confidence  of  victory 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  The  tribunal  has 
not  yet  decided  on  that  conflict.  The  case  is  sub 
judice.  But  the  conscientious  and  eager  presenta¬ 
tion  of  the  arguments  on  both  sides  was  the  necessary 
preliminary.  Neither  champion  could  be  blamed 
for  his  convictions.  The  only  person  to  be  blamed 
would  be  he  who  abstained  altogether  and  would 
not  take  the  trouble  or  responsibility  of  noticing, 
or  seeking  to  staunch,  the  wound  through  which 
Ireland  is  bleeding  to  death. 

The  strong  argument  for  political  interest  and 


POLITICS 


IO3 


activity  is  at  bottom  humanitarian  and  even  religious. 
The  final  judgment,  so  Christ  has  taught  us,  will 
go  chiefly  by  the  omission  to  minister  to  men,  hungry, 
sick,  and  in  prison.  He  will  regard  this  neglect  as 
shown  towards  Himself,  and  the  punishment,  the 
certain  punishment,  will  fall  upon  the  surprised 
delinquents.  Now,  in  a  modern  State  this  ministry, 
in  any  large  and  adequate  sense,  is  a  matter  of  legis¬ 
lation  and  of  the  administration  of  the  law.  In  a 
word,  it  is  political. 

A  passage  in  Aristotle  is  a  rebuke  to  much  modern 
political  indifferentism :  “The  true  friend  of  the 
people  should  see  that  they  be  not  too  poor,  for 
extreme  poverty  lowers  the  character  of  the  democ¬ 
racy;  measures  also  should  be  taken  which  will 
give  them  lasting  prosperity;  and  as  this  is  equally 
the  interest  of  all  classes,  the  proceeds  of  the  public 
revenues  should  be  accumulated  and  distributed 
among  them,  if  possible,  in  such  quantities  as  may 
enable  them  to  purchase  a  little  farm,  or,  at  any  rate, 
make  a  beginning  in  trade  and  husbandry.  And 
if  this  benevolence  cannot  be  extended  to  all,  money 
should  be  distributed  in  turn  according  to  tribes  or 
other  divisions,  and  in  the  meantime  the  rich  should 
pay  the  fee  for  the  attendance  of  the  poor  at  the  neces¬ 
sary  assemblies,  and  should  in  return  be  excused 
from  useless  public  services.  By  administering  the 
State  in  this  spirit  the  Carthaginians  retain  the 
affections  of  the  people;  their  policy  is  from  time 
to  time  to  send  some  of  them  into  their  dependent 


104 


GREAT  ISSUES 


towns,  where  they  grow  rich.  It  is  also  worthy  of  a 
generous  and  sensible  nobility  to  divide  the  poor 
amongst  them  and  give  them  the  means  of  going  to 
work.  The  example  of  the  people  of  Tarentum 
is  also  well  deserving  of  imitation,  for,  by  sharing  the 
use  of  their  own  property  with  the  poor,  they  gain 
their  goodwill.”  1 

Here  the  father  of  political  philosophy  and  political 
economy  has  anticipated  the  latest  developments  of 
social  organization. 

The  treatment  of  the  poor,  the  access  to  the  land, 
the  opportunity  of  earning  the  daily  bread,  the  sani¬ 
tary  conditions  on  which  the  moral  wellbeing  of 
man  depends,  the  correction  and  cure  of  crime, 
the  education  of  the  children,  the  commodities  and 
enjoyments  of  life,  the  care  of  the  sick,  of  the  deficient, 
of  the  aged,  depend  upon  the  decisions  of  legislators 
and  the  efficiency  of  magistrates  and  public  officers. 
When  a  man  declines  his  responsibility  for  Parlia¬ 
ment,  for  local  government,  for  Poor  Law  adminis¬ 
tration,  he  incurs  the  punishment  which  our  Lord 
denounced  on  those  who  do  not  these  things  to  Him 
because  they  do  them  not  to  their  fellow-men. 

If  the  principles  of  land  tenure  make  it  impossible 
for  the  poor  to  work  on  the  land;  if  the  rights  of 
property  make  the  life  of  the  poor  in  a  great  city 
like  an  inferno;  if  the  administration  of  the  Poor 
Law  makes  more  poverty  than  it  cures,  and  demor¬ 
alizes  those  whom  it  relieves;  if  a  prison  system 

1  Arist.  Pol.  vi.  5. 


POLITICS 


io5 

hardens  the  criminal  instead  of  reforming  him;  if 
the  drink  monopoly  establishes  a  power  of  organized 
temptation  which  ruins  hundreds  of  thousands; 
if  defective  education  renders  the  young  unfit  for 
the  task  of  life;  if  the  bad  educational  machinery 
closes  a  career  to  the  gifted  and  industrial  child  — 
who  is  to  blame?  Surely  every  one  who  does  not 
use  all  his  legitimate  influence  to  reform  the  abuses 
and  to  institute  a  better  order.  Pity  to  men  and 
duty  to  Christ  alike  require  the  member  of  a  modem 
State  to  be  political.  It  is  no  restless  love  of  change 
which  impels  us  to  be  always  improving  the  ma¬ 
chinery  of  State.  Rather  it  is  the  obvious  fact  that  a 
political  organism  is  always  developing;  to  neglect 
the  task  of  repairing  and  readjusting  the  machine 
is  to  entail  suffering  and  loss  on  millions.  The 
policy  of  an  unthinking  Conservatism  is  cruelty; 
the  policy  of  laissez-faire  is  equivalent  to  letting  men 
run  down  the  steep  incline  to  destruction. 

We  do  not  pause  to  discuss  the  question  who  should 
have  the  franchise.  Whatever  may  be  the  extent 
or  limitations  of  the  franchise,  no  intelligent  person 
is  precluded  from  political  influence.  A  woman 
without  the  vote,  if  she  gives  time  and  thought  to 
political  questions,  can  do  more  than  fifty  men  who 
vote  mechanically,  without  knowledge.  The  world 
is  swayed  by  personality,  by  the  wisdom,  the  expe¬ 
rience,  the  energy  of  those  who  think  and  speak,  and 
combine  and  act.  What  is  here  contended  is  that 
every  one,  while  demanding,  if  need  be,  greater 


io6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


political  opportunities,  is  bound  to  use  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  which  is  already  procured.  No  one  must 
abstain.  It  is  a  manifest  duty  to  understand  political 
questions,  so  far  as  we  can,  to  take  our  side  to  the 
best  of  our  judgment,  and  to  play  our  part  to  the  best 
of  our  abilities.  A  Christian  who  shirks  his  political 
obligations  is  not  only  a  traitor  to  the  State,  but  he 
incurs  the  condemnation  of  his  Lord,  whose  fore- 
announced  judgment  decisively  condemns  political 
abstention. 

2.  There  are  some  political  principles  which  in  a 
Christian  State  at  least  should  be  axiomatic,  and 
probably  are.  Whatever  parties  may  exist  they 
must  be  regulated  by  them.  The  difference  occurs 
in  the  mode  of  carrying  out  the  principles,  not  in  the 
principles  themselves.  To  obtain  a  grasp  of  these 
fundamental  axioms  of  political  philosophy  would 
greatly  serve  us  in  choosing  or  in  justifying  our 
political  party.  Unless  a  man  has  settled  such 
principles  in  his  own  mind  he  acts  blindly  in  the 
struggles  of  party  warfare. 

Let  us  endeavour  to  lay  down  these  admitted 
principles,  and  then  we  can  examine  more  fruitfully 
the  dogmas  of  political  parties  and  the  methods  by 
which  the  parties  propose  to  carry  out  the  admitted 
principles. 

The  first  axiom  of  politics  is  that  the  good  of  the 
whole  community  is  to  be  the  aim  of  all  laws  and  of 
all  government.  This  axiom  was  granted  verbally 
in  antiquity ;  but  it  was  vitiated  by  one  fatal  flaw  — 


POLITICS 


107 


the  Greek  State  rested  on  slave-labour.  The  slaves 
had  no  rights.  Mechanics  could  not  be  citizens.1 
In  Athens,  for  example,  there  were  only  twenty 
thousand  citizens  and  four  hundred  thousand  slaves. 
When  the  Greek,  therefore,  spoke  of  the  good  of  the 
whole  community,  he  meant  only  the  good  of  the 
small  minority  who  had  political  rights  and  were 
citizens.  Happily  in  the  modern  world  slavery 
has  ceased;  all  persons  are  citizens.  And  the  first 
principle  of  all  legislation  is  that  the  good  of  all,  of 
all  ranks,  sexes,  and  ages,  should  be  sought. 

It  is  highly  important  that  this  fundamental  axiom 
should  be  secured  and  understood;  for  all  men  are 
easily  warped  by  their  selfish  interests.  Unless  the 
first  principle  is  fixed,  a  class  will  seek  to  legislate 
for  itself  and  will  justify  its  egotism  by  expecting  other 
classes  to  legislate  for  themselves,  if  they  can.  In 
this  way  class  legislation  and  class  antagonism  take 
the  place  of  public  spirit  and  patriotism.  Most  of 
the  sufferings  in  every  modern  State  are  due  to  the 
neglect  of  this  axiom,  which  yet  theoretically  all 
would  accept. 

No  doubt  there  may  be  the  widest  difference  of 
opinion  about  what  is  the  good  of  the  whole  com¬ 
munity,  and  here  the  divergent  political  parties  have 
their  justification.  But  there  should  be  absolute 
agreement  on  this,  that  the  object  is  not  to  secure  the 
privileges  of  the  few,  but  to  serve  the  good  of  all,  and 
never  to  base  the  happiness  of  a  class  on  the  suffering 

1  Arist.  Pol.  iii.  5. 


io8 


GREAT  ISSUES 


or  degradation  of  the  rest.  A  Tory  of  the  old  school, 
no  doubt,  believed  that  it  was  for  the  good  of  all  that 
they  should  abide  in  the  station  of  life  in  which  Provi¬ 
dence  had  placed  them.  He  thought  that  his  own 
position  as  landlord  was  best  for  him  and  the  la¬ 
bourer’s  position  as  labourer  was  best  for  him.  With 
a  certain  religious  fervour  he  would  pray : 

“Let  acts  and  manners,  laws  and  systems  die, 

But  spare  us  still  our  old  nobility.” 

He  saw  nothing  but  the  fitness  of  the  Divine  order 
in  the  poor  people  drawn  up  on  the  village  green, 
as  the  squire  went  to  church,  offering  their  litany : 

“God  bless  the  squire  and  all  his  rich  relations, 

And  teach  us  poor  folk  to  keep  our  stations.” 

This  old  dogma  of  a  feudal  aristocracy  had  its 
roots  in  history.  It  was  justified  by  a  time  when 
the  feudal  lord  was  the  protector  and  friend  of  his 
dependants,  and  every  individual  found  his  highest 
good  in  the  maintenance  of  the  feudal  organization. 
The  Tory  principle  seems  to  the  modern  mind  incon¬ 
sistent  with  the  first  political  axiom;  and  probably 
it  is  defended  now  only  by  selfish  interests  which 
set  the  axiom  at  defiance.  But  it  was  in  rude  times, 
and  in  the  early  efforts  to  reach  security  of  life  and 
status,  a  genuine  effort  to  serve  the  common  good. 

But  the  axiom  operating  more  freely,  and  un¬ 
questioned,  to-day  is  leading  men  of  all  parties  to 
take  a  broader  view.  Even  Toryism  is  merging 


POLITICS 


I09 


into  Tory-democracy.  No  politician  can  now  confess 
that  he  is  seeking  only  the  welfare  of  a  class.  If  he 
opposes  a  Licence  Bill,  it  is  not  because  he  defends 
the  drink  interest,  but  because  he  is  anxious  for  tem¬ 
perance.  If  he  resists  land  legislation,  it  is  not  that 
he  may  keep  intact  his  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
acres,  but  that  the  poor  man  who  has  acquired  three 
acres  and  a  cow  may  not  be  disturbed  in  his  pos¬ 
session. 

The  second  axiom  is  that  the  wealth  of  a  country 
consists  in  its  manhood,  and  not  in  its  property. 
The  Greek  was  able  to  maintain  this  principle  easily 
because  he  did  not  count  the  artisans  as  human. 
Slaves  had  no  rights;  they  were  only  living  tools, 
as  tools  were  lifeless  slaves.  There  was  no  diffi¬ 
culty,  therefore,  in  recognizing  the  dignity  and  value 
of  that  small  minority  that  constituted  the  citizen¬ 
ship.  The  democracy  in  Greece  was  the  rule  of  the 
privileged  few,  precisely  what  in  the  modern  world 
would  be  called  an  aristocracy. 

But  for  us,  with  all  the  masses  of  the  toilers  recog¬ 
nized  as  men,  claiming  equality  as  men,  the  axiom 
is  more  difficult  to  grasp  and  to  apply.  Our  failure 
to  grasp  and  to  apply  it  involves  us  in  the  admitted 
anomalies  of  heavy  punishment  inflicted  for  the 
stealing  of  a  carrot  and  far  lighter  punishment 
inflicted  for  the  beating  of  a  wife,  or  of  the  astonish¬ 
ing  neglect  of  the  tramps  who  infest  our  streets  and 
roads  compared  with  the  jealous  protection  of  every 
minutest  item  of  material  wealth. 


no 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Ruskin  was  the  modern  master  who  drew  this 
axiom  out  in  its  self-evident  clearness.  He  has 
convinced  the  modern  world.  Economists  now 
agree  with  him.  Politicians  speak  and  act  as  if 
the  principle  had  never  been  questioned.  The 
wealth  of  a  nation  is  to  be  estimated  by  the  number 
of  healthy,  moral,  and  happy  human  beings  that 
compose  it.  The  material  wealth  may  conceivably 
be  a  hindrance  to  the  things  which  make  men  really 
wealthy. 

In  the  present  condition  of  the  United  States  there 
is  a  salutary  lesson  for  the  world.  With  boundless 
means  of  production  and  complete  political  liberty, 
with  universal  education,  and  the  higher  grades  of 
education  put  within  the  reach  of  all,  this  great  na¬ 
tion  has  as  yet  failed  to  produce  happiness  and  well¬ 
being,  simply  because  the  old  delusion  that  wealth 
consists  in  the  abundance  of  possessions  was  carried 
over  into  the  New  World.  Men  live  feverish  lives 
accumulating,  not  to  enjoy,  but  for  the  mania  of  accu¬ 
mulation.  The  masses  of  the  workers  are  in  an  un¬ 
stable  condition,  and  by  the  fluctuations  of  trade  are 
either  overstrained  or  reduced  to  idleness  and  penury. 
The  enormous  national  wealth  is  appropriated  by  the 
skilful  men  who  can  manipulate  markets  or  mo¬ 
nopolize  industries.  The  trusts  and  the  millionaires 
are  entrenched  in  a  position  which  the  most  en¬ 
lightened  President  assails  in  vain. 

What  ought  to  be  the  best  and  happiest  State  in 
the  world  is  not  the  object  of  admiration  or  desire. 


POLITICS 


III 


Its  politics  are  corrupt,  the  sport  of  interested  self- 
seekers.  Even  the  integrity  of  municipal  administra¬ 
tion  is  impossible  to  secure.  In  new  cities,  flanked 
with  fertile  prairies,  there  are  the  same  slums  that 
defile  the  cities  of  Europe.  Religion  and  art  are 
tainted  by  the  commercial  spirit.  Prudential  con¬ 
siderations  arrest  the  growth  of  a  native  population, 
so  that  the  State  grows  only  by  alien  immigration. 
Every  one  is  conscious  of  a  kind  of  metallic  deteriora¬ 
tion.  The  coinage  of  humanity  is  fretted  or  debased. 
The  countries  of  the  Old  World  have  certain  ancient 
checks  upon  the  unlimited  pursuit  of  material  wealth. 
The  New  World  gave  itself  up,  unbridled  and  un¬ 
limited,  to  that  pursuit.1 

The  axiom,  therefore,  must  be  reasserted  and 
refurbished.  Manhood  constitutes  the  wealth  of 
a  nation.  The  rights  of  property  have  their  place, 
but  the  rights  of  man  take  precedence.  Human 
nature,  human  wellbeing,  human  development,  and 
education  must  be  the  first  consideration  of  the 
statesman,  the  legislator,  the  voter,  the  politician, 
as  well  as  of  the  preacher,  the  philosopher,  and  the 
publicist. 

1 1  am  constrained  to  say  that  a  brief  visit  to  the  United 
States,  and  a  happy  sojourn  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  enabled  me  to 
see  the  brighter  side  of  American  life.  There  is  a  chosen  seed, 
a  remnant,  in  that  vast  country.  The  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
is  not  dead.  And  though  the  surging  tides  of  immigration  sweep 
in  the  alien  ideas  of  European  atheism,  anarchy,  and  super¬ 
stition,  that  mighty  leaven  of  the  early  settlers  works,  and  may, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  leaven  the  whole  lump. 


1 1 2 


GREAT  ISSUES 


There  is  a  third  axiom  which,  at  least  since  the 
French  Revolution,  has  been  tacitly  accepted  by 
every  one,  and  to  it  even  the  most  antiquated  Tory¬ 
ism  does  not  now  oppose  a  direct  negative.  It  is  the 
principle  of  the  carrilre  ouverte  aux  talens.  It  is  ad¬ 
mitted  that  men  are  not  equal,  it  is  suspected  that 
they  never  can  be,  it  is  doubted  whether  equality 
would  be  beneficial  for  the  world.  But  no  one  now 
questions  that  every  human  being  should  have  the 
opportunity  of  becoming  all  that  he  is  capable  of 
being.  The  invidious  bars  of  birth  and  circum¬ 
stance  must  be,  as  far  as  possible,  broken,  so  that 
whatever  faculty  or  power  there  may  be  in  every  in¬ 
dividual  may  have  its  fair  chance  of  developing  for 
the  good  of  the  whole.  Ancient  forms,  and  the  ossi¬ 
fication  of  an  old  society,  oppose  the  most  formi¬ 
dable  barriers  to  this  natural  claim  of  genius  and 
ability.  A  wise  social  legislation  aims,  therefore,  at 
a  constant  correction  and  readjustment. 

Education,  it  is  now  admitted,  must  be  univer¬ 
sal,  and  graded  in  such  a  way  that  the  poorest  child 
can  pass  unimpeded,  if  he  has  the  faculty,  from  the 
primary  to  the  secondary  school,  and  from  the 
secondary  school  to  the  university  or  the  technical 
college.  Every  one  sees  the  cruelty  of  leaving  gifted 
children  condemned  to  the  mill  of  monotonous 
labour,  when  they  might  become  the  leaders  and  in- 
spirers  of  their  kind.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  that 
genius  usually  emerges  from  the  cottage  rather  than 
from  the  mansion,  from  the  Ghetto  rather  than  from 


POLITICS 


113 

the  Pincian.  A  nation  cannot,  therefore,  afford  to 
lose  its  gifted  sons  and  daughters  who  are  born  to 
penury  and  stinted  opportunity.  But  is  it  not  equally 
obvious  that  even  ordinary  children,  who  have  no 
promise  of  distinction,  must  not  be  left  to  the  cruelty 
of  ignorance  or  vice  in  their  parents,  but  must  have 
their  chance  of  training  for  life,  their  opportunity  of 
making  their  way?  Careless  or  needy  parents  take 
the  boy  from  school  and  send  him  to  a  job  which 
brings  in  a  few  shillings  a  week,  instead  of  training 
him  for  a  trade  which  will  last  a  lifetime.  Myriads 
of  messengers,  errand  boys,  newspaper  sellers,  and 
others  are  permanently  unfitted  for  life  by  filling  up 
the  formative  years  of  youth  with  labour  which  fits 
them  for  nothing,  labour  from  which  they  are  ousted 
so  soon  as  they  demand  the  wages  of  a  man. 

All  parties  in  the  State,  all  shades  of  political 
opinion,  whatever  may  be  the  differing  methods 
proposed  for  achieving  the  object,  must  agree  that 
nothing  presses  more  urgently,  in  the  vast  confusion 
of  a  modern  community,  than  to  secure  this  elemen¬ 
tary  justice  for  every  child  born  within  our  shores. 

A  fourth  axiom ,  the  cardinal  principle  of  democ¬ 
racy,  is  no  longer  now  seriously  questioned,  viz., 
that  the  will  of  the  people  must  be  the  ultimate  au¬ 
thority  in  government  and  legislation.  We  have 
seen  in  the  year  of  grace  1908  the  amazing  spectacle 
of  a  Sultan  opening  a  constitutional  Parliament.  He 
drove  through  the  crowded  streets  of  Constantinople, 
in  which  for  many  years  he  had  been  afraid  to 


GREAT  ISSUES 


114 

appear,  from  the  Yildiz  Kiosk,  across  the  Golden 
Horn,  to  the  chamber  close  to  St.  Sophia,  recalling 
the  glory  of  the  great  Sultans  and  even  the  majesty 
of  Constantine  or  Justinian.  After  thirty-two  years, 
he  had  abandoned  the  crudity  and  monstrosity  of 
absolutism,  and  came  to  rejoice  that  his  people 
were  at  last  prepared  for  constitutional  government, 
which  thirty  years  before  was  premature.  And 
though  the  person  of  Abdul  Hamid  proved  to  be 
irreformable,  that  has  not  hindered  the  reform  and 
the  resuscitation  of  the  Turkish  people.  This 
modern  miracle  is  peculiarly  salutary  at  a  time  when 
impatient  doctrinaires,  in  Oxford  cloisters,  pour  con¬ 
tempt  on  parliamentary  government,  and  demand  a 
bureaucracy  or  even  an  absolute  monarchy. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  Western  world  will  ever 
recede  from  the  coign  of  vantage  which  it  has 
reached.  Vox  populi  vox  Dei.  The  Divinity  is 
widely  diffused  through  humanity.  No  human 
being  is  without  the  Divine  spark.  No  individuals, 
however  good  or  great,  can  claim  a  monopoly.  The 
wisest  despot  is  not  wise  enough  to  perceive  the 
highest  good  of  millions.  The  most  disinterested 
bureaucracy  never  succeeds  in  seeing  beyond  the 
machine  of  government  and  its  efficiency  into  the 
human  sentiments,  passions,  needs,  and  rights  which 
constitute  the  life  of  a  nation.  Honesty,  virtue, 
valour  in  a  Government  never  atone  for  the  lack  of 
the  one  principle  on  which  a  Government  can  se¬ 
curely  rest,  the  free  consent  of  the  whole  people. 


POLITICS 


115 

Doubtless,  a  whole  people  may  appoint  a  dictator 
for  a  limited  period,  or  may  even  trust  absolutely  a 
statesman  or  a  Cabinet  for  a  given  purpose.  But 
the  security  lies  in  the  account  which  must  be  ren¬ 
dered  to  the  people,  and  in  the  latent  sense  that  the 
authority  is  delegated.  No  individual  in  a  State  is 
or  can  be  supreme.  Autocracy  is  weakness,  secured 
by  craft,  maintained  by  force,  perishing  in  panic 
and  demoralization.  There  is  only  one  autocrat, 
that  is  God.  He  expresses  His  will  through  the 
whole  people.  It  is  therefore  the  first  principle  of 
government,  and  the  ultimate  precept  of  religion,  to 
obtain  the  most  considerate,  the  most  unbiassed,  and 
the  must  unhindered  expression  of  the  people’s  will. 
This  is  the  democracy  which  political  prophets  from 
the  earliest  ages  desired  to  see.  Its  day  has  dawned. 
Towards  it  Europe  has  moved  with  a  slow,  unrest¬ 
ing  course.  Its  full  realization  is  the  problem  of 
to-day  and  of  the  future. 

“The  word  which  waited  so  long  to  be  spoken,  behold,  it  is 
gone  forth! 

Lo,  shooting  of  swift  auroral  gleams, 

Thoughts  hither  and  thither  spreading,  coherent. 

Words,  hark !  babbling  multitudinous, 

Waves  to  and  fro  in  the  sunlight  flowing,  lisping  — 

Louder  and  louder  lisping,  into  one  consent  waking.”  1 

The  fifth  axiom  which  is  now  granted  by  the 
democratic  conviction  of  Europe  is  one  which  finds 

1  “Towards  Democracy,”  p.  139.  Edward  Carpenter. 


n6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  most  formidable  obstacles  in  the  traditions  and 
survivals  of  the  evil  ages  that  are  gone.  It  is  the 
principle  of  the  Jus  Gentium ,  though  it  has  taken  a 
far  wider  scope  than  was  intended  in  Roman  Law. 
The  Jus  Gentium  was  the  code,  imaginary  rather 
than  written,  which  applied  to  the  relations  of  Rome 
with  other  States,  the  Common  Law  of  the  nations. 
When  the  Roman  Empire  vanished  in  the  nations 
of  modern  Europe  the  principle  survived.  Like  a 
germ  it  has  pushed  towards  the  light.  No  one  now 
disputes  it,  though  few  see  whereunto  it  will  grow. 
Nations  as  units  have  their  justification,  but  not  as 
hostile  units,  only  as  units  in  the  large  body  of  hu¬ 
manity.  Humanity  is  the  unit.  As  God  is  one, 
man  is  one.  Any  sincere  belief  in  God  involves  a 
belief  in  the  solidarity  of  humanity. 

Once  the  counties  of  England  were  warring  king¬ 
doms.  England  only  emerged  in  their  fusion  under 
Edward  the  Elder.  America  had  the  advantage  of 
starting  with  the  fusion;  her  great  war  was  to  pre¬ 
vent  division.  The  United  States  covers  a  continent. 
Each  State  is  independent,  but  the  United  States  is  a 
nation. 

Shall  we  call  it  a  certain  trend  of  evolution,  or 
shall  we  regard  it  as  the  beckoning  ideal,  which  we 
are  called  on  to  realize?  There  should  be  a  United 
States  of  Europe;  as  the  kingdoms  of  the  Hep¬ 
tarchy  became  England,  the  States  of  Europe  should 
become  at  last  Europe. 

Long  ago,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 


POLITICS 


117 

tury,  it  was  said,  “There  are  no  longer  nations  in 
Europe,  but  only  parties.”  It  seemed  as  if  democ¬ 
racy  bound  the  people  together  more  than  the  idea 
of  the  nation  to  which  the  particular  people  belonged. 
Royalists  were  one,  Ultramontanes  were  one,  more 
than  the  English  were  one  or  the  French  were  one. 
But  one  of  the  most  curious  movements  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  was  the  creation  and  the  strengthen¬ 
ing  of  national  ideals.  Italy,  which  for  centuries 
had  been,  as  Metternich  expressed  it,  “a  geographi¬ 
cal  expression,”  became  a  nation.  The  innumer¬ 
able  German  kingdoms  and  dukedoms  became  a 
nation.  Even  the  conglomerate  of  Slavs  and  Czechs 
and  Germans,  gathered  under  the  Crown  of 
Francis  Joseph,  became  a  kind  of  nation.  The 
national  idea  fostered  the  national  consciousness, 
and  set  the  nations  on  the  path  of  military  arma¬ 
ments,  a  rivalry  of  futile  preparations  for  imaginary 
wars. 

Europe,  which  once  enjoyed  the  Pax  Romana 
under  a  strong  Emperor  at  Rome  or  even  at  Ra¬ 
venna,  has  become  an  armed  camp,  wasting  her 
strength  and  resources  on  soldiers  that  never  fight 
and  ships  that  are  broken  up  and  sold  as  old  iron. 
The  thing  has  become  not  a  little  ridiculous.  The 
interlude  in  the  world’s  progress  has  become  a  farce, 
a  tragi-comedy. 

The  Hague  Conference  recalled  Europe  to  its 
senses,  just  as  the  revolution  in  Russia  and  the 
protest  in  the  Reichstag  called  to  their  senses  the 


Il8  GREAT  ISSUES 

two  autocrats  whose  vagaries  maintain  the  unnatural 
militarism  of  Europe. 

But  the  interlude  will  pass  away  as  an  evil  dream. 
War,  whether  of  arms  or  tariffs,  cannot  perma¬ 
nently  be  endured  as  the  democracy  triumphs. 
The  peoples  have  no  quarrel  with  one  another. 
They  are  kept  asunder  by  interested  persons,  a 
mere  handful,  who  profit  by  their  estrangement. 
Presently  they  will  decline  to  fight  with  their  brothers, 
and  will  demand  for  peaceful  development  the 
wealth  which  is  at  present  wasted  on  armaments. 

A  distinguished  journalist  told  me  of  his  experi¬ 
ence  in  the  Greco-Turkish  War.  In  the  first  battle 
he  and  the  volunteers  repulsed  the  Turks  who  were 
opposed  to  them.  He  saw  the  dead,  and  among 
them  a  grey-haired  peasant  with  a  bullet  through 
his  head.  The  innocent  conscript  had  been  com¬ 
mandeered  and  sent  to  fight  the  Greeks.  What 
knew  he  or  cared  he  for  the  war  or  the  cause?  The 
Englishman  thought,  “  Perhaps  it  was  my  bullet  that 
killed  this  poor  old  man.”  There  on  the  battle¬ 
field  he  became  a  convinced  opponent  of  militarism, 
a  believer  in  peace. 

Gradually,  on  the  battlefield  of  the  world,  man¬ 
kind  is  waking  up;  it  sees  the  huge  tragedy  of  its 
estrangement,  the  fair  earth  marred  by  the  quarrels 
and  misunderstandings  of  brothers.  The  high  poli¬ 
tics  of  the  future  will  be  peace. 

It  has  happened  in  my  time  that  one  man  illus¬ 
trated  all  that  has  been  said  on  politics.  If  for  a 


POLITICS 


119 

moment  since  his  death  his  fame  and  name  have 
seemed  to  be  eclipsed,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his 
figure  will  emerge  and  shine  as  a  star  in  the  reced¬ 
ing  past.  For  he  raised  the  standard  of  politics  in 
this  country  to  a  moral,  and  even  a  spiritual,  height, 
which  we  cannot  afford  to  surrender.  William  Ewart 
Gladstone  was  a  man  who  might  have  been  a  theo¬ 
logian  and  a  great  ecclesiastic;  he  might  have  been 
a  scholar  and  a  great  writer ;  he  might  have  achieved 
success  in  any  professional  career.  But  he  was  led 
into  politics,  and  he  brought  with  him  into  that  field 
all  the  qualities  which  would  have  made  him  great 
in  any  other.  Coming  generations  will  not  be  able 
to  understand  the  spell  which  he  exercised  over  his 
contemporaries.  Never  can  I  forget  the  May  day 
in  1898,  when  a  friend  and  I  tried  to  read  through 
our  streaming  tears  the  accounts  which  appeared, 
the  speeches  which  were  delivered  in  Parliament, 
the  tributes  which  came  from  all  over  the  world,  at 
the  time  of  his  death.  One  of  his  colleagues  has 
concluded  a  fine  study  of  his  career  in  this  way: 
“There  is  a  passage  in  the  ‘Odyssey’  where  the 
seer  Theoclymenus  says,  in  describing  a  vision  of 
death,  ‘The  sun  has  perished  out  of  heaven.’  To 
Englishmen  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  like  a  sun, 
which,  sinking  slowly,  had  grown  larger  as  he  sank 
and  filled  the  sky  with  radiance  even  while  he 
trembled  on  the  verge  of  the  horizon.  There  were 
men  of  ability  and  men  of  renown,  but  there  was 
no  one  comparable  to  him  in  fame  and  power  and 


120 


GREAT  ISSUES 


honour.  When  he  departed  the  light  seemed  to 
have  died  out  of  the  sky.”  1 

He  showed  us  the  glory  and  dignity  of  political 
life,  and  how  its  warfare  may  be  carried  on  and 
accomplished.  He  was  not  a  party  man;  but,  filled 
with  great  ideals,  he  used,  to  attain  them,  the  party 
which  promised  the  best  help;  he  made  the  party 
for  the  purpose.  Brought  up  in  a  straitened  politi¬ 
cal  school,  at  home  and  at  the  university,  he  did  not 
learn  at  Oxford,  but  only  after,  “the  value  of  liberty 
as  an  essential  condition  of  excellence  in  human 
things.”  2  But  as  the  great  idea  took  possession  of 
him  he  became  increasingly  the  champion  of  liberty 
for  all  mankind.  If  Bomba  was  imprisoning  and 
torturing  his  subjects  in  Naples,  Gladstone  made 
Europe  to  ring  with  indignation.  If  Italy  was  strug¬ 
gling  for  unity  and  independence,  if  Greece  or  any 
other  of  the  dependencies  of  Turkey  were  writhing 
to  escape  the  fetters,  if  Ireland  were  groaning  under 
the  economic  and  political  disabilities  which  cen¬ 
turies  of  ignorance  and  indifference  had  inflicted 
upon  her  —  it  mattered  not  who  were  the  sufferers, 
the  call  never  came  to  him  in  vain.  The  great  meas¬ 
ures,  proposed  or  carried,  which  filled  the  years  of 
his  three  administrations  are  not  his  chief  title  to 
remembrance  and  gratitude.  His  unrivalled  popu¬ 
lar  eloquence,  which  swayed  vast  multitudes  as  easily 

1  “Studies  in  Contemporary  Biography,”  by  Right  Hon.  J. 
Bryce,  p.  480. 

*  “Life  of  W.  E.  Gladstone,”  by  John  Morley,  i.  180. 


POLITICS 


121 


as  it  dominated  the  House  of  Commons,  will  be  a 
tradition,  but  not  a  lasting  claim  to  a  nation’s  devo¬ 
tion.  His  splendid  mental  and  physical  powers  pale 
before  the  moral  and  spiritual  greatness  which  en¬ 
thralled  contemporaries  and  will  be  the  growing 
wonder  of  posterity.  It  was  this  which  shed  lustre 
on  the  political  arena,  and  made  corruption  and  low 
ambition  ashamed  to  show  their  faces.  By  a  per¬ 
sonal  elevation  of  character  he  saved  Parliament 
and  public  life  from  the  degeneration  into  which 
democracies  are  prone  to  fall. 

At  the  age  of  thirty  he  wrote,  “The  longer  I  live 
the  more  I  feel  my  own  intrinsically  utter  powerless¬ 
ness  in  the  House  of  Commons.”  He  lived  to  be 
the  most  commanding  force  in  that  House  that  there 
has  ever  been.  In  the  midst  of  an  admiration  — 
and  be  it  added,  a  hostility  —  which  made  him  the 
cynosure  of  every  eye,  the  best-known  name  in  the 
civilized  world,  he  was  utterly  unconscious  that  he 
was  even  distinguished.  Mr.  Bryce  records  a 
charming  incident: 

“Once  in  the  lobby  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
seeing  his  countenance  saddened  by  the  troubles  of 
Ireland,  I  told  him,  in  order  to  divert  his  thoughts, 
how  some  one  had  recently  discovered  that  Dante 
had  in  his  last  years  been  appointed  at  Ravenna  to  a 
lectureship  which  raised  him  above  the  pinch  of 
want.  Mr.  Gladstone’s  face  lit  up  at  once,  and  he 
said:  ‘How  strange  it  is  to  think  that  these  great 
souls  whose  words  are  a  beacon-light  to  all  the 


122 


GREAT  ISSUES 


generations  that  have  come  after  them,  should  have 
had  cares  and  anxieties  to  vex  them  in  their  daily 
life,  just  like  the  rest  of  us  common  mortals.’  The 
phrase  reminded  me  that  a  few  days  before  I  had 
heard  Mr.  Darwin,  in  dwelling  upon  the  pleasure  a 
visit  paid  by  Mr.  Gladstone  had  given  him,  say, 
‘And  he  talked  just  as  if  he  had  been  an  ordinary 
person  like  one  of  ourselves.’  The  two  great  men 
were  alike  unconscious  of  their  greatness.” 

The  secret  of  this  almost  incredible  humility  is, 
perhaps,  revealed  in  a  passage  of  the  Rectorial  Ad¬ 
dress  at  Edinburgh:  “The  thirst  for  an  enduring 
fame  is  near  akin  to  the  love  of  true  excellence;  but 
the  fame  of  the  moment  is  a  dangerous  possession 
and  a  bastard  motive;  and  he  who  does  his  acts  in 
order  that  the  echo  of  them  may  come  back  as  a 
soft  music  in  his  ears  plays  false  to  his  noble  destiny 
as  a  Christian  man,  places  himself  in  continual  dan¬ 
ger  of  dallying  with  wrong,  and  taints  even  his 
virtuous  actions  at  their  source.”  1 

In  England  at  least  no  man  has  an  excuse  for 
abstaining  from  public  life  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
sordid;  every  one  has  a  reason  for  interest  in  it  in 
order  to  maintain  its  great  traditions.  Here,  for 
many  centuries,  politics  has  meant  the  application  of 
religion  —  of  the  Christian  religion  —  to  the  life  of 
the  State.  There  are  many  defaulters,  men  who 
abstain  from  politics  on  the  plea  of  religion,  others 
who  enter  politics  without  religion,  but  there  have 

1  “Life  of  W.  E.  Gladstone,”  by  John  Morley,  i.  634. 


POLITICS 


I23 


ever  been  the  “sifted  few”  from  the  days  of  Alfred 
the  Great  until  now,  they  who  sacrifice  everything 
for  the  welfare  of  their  country  and  mankind,  and 
work 


“As  ever  in  the  great  Taskmaster’s  eye.” 


CHAPTER  V 


SOCIALISM 

There  is  something  almost  droll  in  the  glibness 
with  which  Sir  William  Harcourt’s  obiter  dictum , 
“We  are  all  Socialists  now”  is  quoted.  The  grim 
irony  which  came  naturally  to  that  witty  statesman 
is  not  intelligible  to  the  man  in  the  street.  The 
man  in  the  street  took  the  saying  of  the  statesman 
as  a  piece  of  news  from  a  higher  sphere,  and  has 
been  repeating  the  statement  ever  since,  until  he 
almost  believes  it.  The  irony  of  the  dictum  is  ex¬ 
quisite.  The  Tories  are  not  Socialists,  nor  are  the 
Liberals;  the  Labour  Party  is  not  Socialist;  but, 
what  is  really  astonishing,  the  Socialists  themselves 
are  not  socialist.  So  far  from  being  all  Socialists, 
none  of  us  are.  The  suspicion  of  a  socialistic  tend¬ 
ency  in  the  Liberal  Party  leads  at  once  to  a  Tory 
reaction.  If  a  great  municipality  acts  on  one  or  two 
of  the  admitted  axioms  of  Socialism,  the  Progressive 
Party  is  swiftly  annihilated.  Every  one  is  allowed 
to  call  himself  a  Socialist;  the  name  is  considered 
harmless;  but  if  any  one  attempts  in  the  faintest 
degree  to  be  a  Socialist,  our  English  world  gives  him 
short  shrift.  What  Sir  William  Harcourt  referred 


124 


SOCIALISM 


125 


to  in  his  witticism  was,  no  doubt,  the  Pharisaic  pro¬ 
fession  of  Socialism  made  by  men  of  all  parties. 
Just  as  Disraeli  announced  himself  on  the  side  of 
the  Angels,  and  every  one  saw  the  humour  of  the 
situation,  so  every  one  now  professes  to  be  among 
the  Socialists,  and  Sir  William  Harcourt  saw  how 
funny  it  is.  Probably  others  are  gradually  seeing 
the  joke,  and  will  presently  laugh. 

It  may  seem  an  extreme  statement  to  say  that 
the  Socialists  are  not  socialist.  But  they  are  not, 
and  never  have  been.  It  is  true  that  they  advocate 
Socialism,  while  it  is  impossible.  But  every  one 
can  see  that,  if  it  were  possible,  they  would  be  its 
most  pitiless  opponents.  The  first  rebellion  in  a 
Socialistic  State  would  be  moved  by  men  like  Mr. 
Hyndman.  Who  can  seriously  picture  to  himself 
Mr.  Hyndman  taking  his  allotted  place  in  a  socialis¬ 
tic  community  and  keeping  it  ?  Indeed,  the  strongest 
argument  against  Socialism  is  that  no  one  can  even 
think  of  a  plan  by  which  men  like  our  ci-devant 
Socialists  could  be  made  to  live  and  work  in  a 
Socialist  community. 

The  Fabians  have  very  wisely  adopted  a  policy  of 
delay.  Fabius  Cunctator  wore  out  Hannibal  by 
refusing  to  fight,  and  so  saved  Rome.  The  Fabians 
hope  to  bring  in  the  Socialist  millennium  by  refusing 
to  be  Socialists.  They  continue  to  talk  about  Social¬ 
ism;  that  is  felt  to  be  always  interesting.  But  they 
must  not  be  supposed  to  mean  anything  practical  or 
immediate.  If  talking  about  Socialism,  or  advo- 


126 


GREAT  ISSUES 


eating  it,  entitled  men  to  be  called  Socialists,  the 
Fabians  might  claim  the  name.  But  if  the  name 
means  doing  anything  socialistic,  or  taking  any  deci¬ 
sive  step  to  realize  the  ideal,  the  Fabians  are  no 
more  Socialists  than  the  Primrose  League.  Indeed, 
strictly  speaking,  the  Primrose  League  is  the  only 
socialistic  organization  in  the  country.  It  must  have 
been,  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  with  a  view  to 
that  pretty  institution  that  Sir  William  Harcourt 
uttered  his  epigram.  In  the  Primrose  League,  Cava¬ 
liers  and  Dames  mingle  freely  with  the  lower  orders. 
Feasts  and  entertainments  are  equally  shared.  At  a 
Primrose  League  beanfeast  a  Duchess  has  no  more 
cups  of  tea  than  her  gardener.  Every  one  enjoys  a 
real,  if  limited,  equality,  in  the  defence  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution  and  the  resistance  to  —  Socialism !  But 
the  League  is  itself  the  nearest  approach  to  Socialism 
that  we  have  attained.  Where  else  do  the  rich  and 
the  poor  meet  together  on  such  friendly  terms? 
Where  else  does  every  one  cease  to  call  what  he  has 
his  own,  and  share  it  unsparingly  with  the  rest? 

But  the  Fabians  and  Socialists  do  not  share  any¬ 
thing.  They  do  not  bring  classes  together.  They 
do  not  promote  camaraderie.  Many  of  them,  like 
Mr.  Ruskin  or  Mr.  William  Morris,  have  good  in¬ 
comes,  derived  from  investments  or  from  their  own 
industry.  But  they  do  not  divide  their  money  among 
those  who  have  not,  or  even  among  themselves.  Mr. 
Ruskin  denounced  the  practice  of  living  on  the  in¬ 
terest  of  invested  money  —  which  he  called  usury — 


SOCIALISM 


127 


and  continued  to  live  on  it  all  his  life.  Mr.  Morris 
lectured  superbly  upon  the  evils  of  competition,  the 
“each  for  himself  and  devil  take  the  hindmost” 
theory  of  life;  but  in  his  own  Art  business  he  was  a 
most  successful  competitor.  He  drove  other  fur¬ 
nishing  establishments  out  of  the  field.  His  Social¬ 
ism  was  only  talk.  So  it  has  been  all  along.  Fred¬ 
erick  Lassalle,  whose  portrait  is  drawn  by  George 
Meredith  in  the  “Tragic  Comedians,”  did  not  live 
as  a  Socialist,  except  in  the  negative  sense  of  ignor¬ 
ing  the  conventional  morality.  I  do  not  remember 
that  Karl  Marx  was  more  socialistic  than  William 
Morris.  There  are,  no  doubt,  Socialist  orators  in 
the  parks  and  open  spaces  of  London  who  are  quite 
willing  to  establish  the  socialistic  State  to-morrow. 
With  nothing  to  lose  they  stand  to  gain  by  a  read¬ 
justment  of  society.  But  if  they  had  anything  to 
lose  they  would  become  “Socialists  of  the  chair”; 
they  would  advocate  an  economical  rearrangement, 
which  is  practically  impossible,  and  meanwhile  they 
would  enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  individualist  regime 
under  which  they  live.  But  the  orators  of  the  parks 
do  not  any  more  than  the  Socialists  of  the  chair  share 
their  wages  or  their  homes  with  the  Have  Nots.  I 
have  known  a  Socialist  agitator  fall  ill;  not  one  of 
his  Socialist  “comrades”  has  come  to  see  him  or  to 
help  him;  the  help  has  come  from  some  humble 
Christian  worker,  prompted  by  that  faith  which  the 
Socialists  had  been  furiously  denouncing. 

Aristotle  made  a  shrewd  if  somewhat  cruel  criti- 


128 


GREAT  ISSUES 


cism  on  Plato’s  “Republic,”  the  first  and  by  far  the 
most  brilliant  dream  of  a  socialistic  State  in  Europe. 
“If  it  had  been  good,”  said  the  cool  analytical  thinker, 
“it  would  have  been  tried  before!”  If  there  had 
been  anything  in  Socialism,  the  Socialists  would 
have  become  socialist  by  now.  They  would  have 
formed  socialistic  communities  here,  or  in  some  new 
country  they  would  have  shown  us  how  it  could  be 
done.  I  shall  be  told  that  Owen  did  establish  a 
socialistic  community  in  America.  Yes,  and  there 
was  the  phalanstery  attempted  or  proposed  by 
Fourier  in  Europe.  Indeed,  the  article  on  Social¬ 
ism  in  the  Encyclopaedia  contains  an  interesting, 
but  not  encouraging,  account  of  many  such  attempts. 
But  they  all  broke  down;  they  were  destroyed,  not 
by  external  force,  but  simply  by  the  facts  of  human 
nature. 

Now  if  select  communities  of  convinced  enthu¬ 
siasts  cannot  maintain  a  socialistic  State,  however 
small,  into  a  second  generation,  what  prospect  is 
there  that  any  State,  great  or  small,  can  become 
socialistic?  Or  if  it  were  socialistic  for  a  moment, 
how  could  the  equilibrium,  human  nature  being 
what  it  is,  be  maintained?  If  the  Socialists  could, 
in  any  favourable  part  of  the  globe,  establish  a 
socialistic  State  and  show  how  it  works,  the  world 
would  take  heart,  and  would  not  despair  of  becom¬ 
ing  Socialist.  But  in  the  reluctance  to  make  the 
experiment,  and  in  the  failure  of  such  experiments 
as  have  been  made,  ordinary  men  recognize  this 


SOCIALISM 


I29 


plain  truth:  Socialism  is  only  a  dream;  it  is  attrac¬ 
tive  as  an  ideal,  it  may  be  useful  as  a  guide  to  action 
which  is  practicable;  but  there  are  not,  there  never 
can  be  real  Socialists,  there  can  only  be  talkers  of 
Socialism,  the  discontented  denouncing  their  fellow- 
men  in  the  name  of  brotherhood,  the  poor  abusing 
the  rich  for  the  sin  of  possessing  —  damning  the  sin, 
that  is,  which  they  have  no  opportunity  of  commit¬ 
ting.  Probably  the  solid  sense  of  mankind,  at  any 
rate  here  in  England,  sees  through  the  matter  pretty 
clearly. 

Plato’s  ideal  State  was  communistic  rather  than 
socialistic.  It  could  not  be  taken  seriously.  The 
“Republic”  is  full  of  grave  irony,  a  satire  as  keen, 
though  not  as  cruel,  as  Swift’s.  It  is  a  kind  of  prose 
poem,  abounding  in  exquisite  pieces,  ending  in  a 
great  vision  of  the  future  world,  where  the  wicked, 
like  Ardiaeus,  are  eternally  tormented,  and  where 
souls  choose  blindly  the  lives  they  will  live  in  the 
next  stage  of  the  metempsychosis,  and  some,  not 
saved  by  wisdom,  drink  more  than  they  need  of 
Lethe’s  waters ! 

Indeed,  we  are  astonished  at  so  serious  a  person 
as  Aristotle  taking  this  great  feat  of  the  imagination 
as  a  proposal  in  practical  politics  at  all.  One 
may  criticise  Henry  George’s  “Progress  and  Pov¬ 
erty,”  but  who  would  criticise  Edward  Bellamy’s 
“Looking  Backward,”  or  William  Morris’s  richly 
coloured  pictures  of  the  better  order  that  is  coming? 

If  we  were  to  treat  Plato  seriously,  there  are 


130 


GREAT  ISSUES 


features  in  his  scheme  which  take  the  breath  even  of 
a  Socialist  to-day.  To  begin  with,  equality  and 
liberty  are  excluded  from  the  State.  On  the  analogy 
of  the  human  soul,  which  is  made  up  of  reason,  will, 
and  passion,  the  State  is  an  organism  with  its  semi- 
Divine  element,  corresponding  to  the  reason,  per¬ 
sons  who  are  the  natural  and  hereditary  guardians, 
or  rulers,  of  the  State;  with  its  active  element, 
corresponding  to  the  will,  people  who  are  the  soldiers 
of  the  State;  and  with  its  canaille  of  artisans,  or 
rather  slaves,  corresponding  to  the  hydra-headed 
passions,  who  are  simply  to  be  controlled  and  kept 
in  order.  Handicrafts  are  a  kind  of  pandering  to 
the  hydra;  therefore  the  workmen  must  be  slaves 
of  the  best,  that  thus  they  may  be  ruled  by  “that 
which  has  in  itself  the  Divine  governing  faculty.” 
As  the  passions  are  controlled  by  the  reason,  so  the 
people  must  be  governed  by  the  elect.  It  is  an 
aristocracy  of  the  most  daring  kind.  The  com¬ 
munism  is  only  among  the  aristocrats ;  for  the  lower 
elements,  even  the  soldiery,  are  left  out  of  account. 

The  ruling  class  has  all  wealth  in  common,  even 
wives  and  children.  A  wife  is  allotted  to  each,  as 
a  revocable  gift,  with  a  view  to  secure  the  best  off¬ 
spring.  The  children  will  be  educated  by  the 
State  for  the  task  of  governing.  But  home  disap¬ 
pears.  As  Aristotle  justly  objects,  parents  would 
not  know  their  own  children;  any  murder  might 
be  parricide. 

These  are  things  imagination  boggles  at.  And 


SOCIALISM 


J31 

if  we  are  to  have  a  socialistic  State,  we  may  be  thank¬ 
ful  that  it  will  not  be  on  the  model  of  Plato’s  “Re¬ 
public.”  The  philosopher’s  dream  was  intrinsi¬ 
cally  a  suggestion  for  the  education  of  philosophers 
and  a  device  for  making  the  philosophers  rule. 

Plato  set  the  world  dreaming  about  an  ideal 
State,  but  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  contributed 
to  its  realization  One  is  even  tempted  to  wonder 
whether  such  idealizing  does  any  good  at  all,  whether 
the  humblest  effort  to  do  good  under  existing  condi¬ 
tions  is  not  better  than  the  bravest  dream  of  improved 
conditions,  under  which  at  last  one  would  endeavour 
to  do  good. 

But  the  dreamers  have  their  use,  even  those  most 
unpractical  of  dreamers,  the  Socialists.  It  is  in¬ 
cumbent  on  us  to  study,  and  to  correct,  those  dreams 
which  unconsciously  shape  the  actions  of  men. 
Rousseau’s  dream  produced,  it  is  said,  the  French 
Revolution.  His  imaginary  picture  of  men  in  a 
state  of  nature,  entering  into  a  social  contract  for 
the  security  of  life  and  property,  shaped  the  action 
of  the  revolutionists.  And  the  fancy  sketches  of 
economic  relations  in  which  Socialists  indulge  shape 
our  thought  and  even  our  practical  legislation. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  extravagant  to  say  that 
Socialism  is  a  religion  rather  than  a  polity.  Like 
Plato’s  Republic,  or  More’s  Utopia,  it  springs  from 
an  idea  of  God.  It  is  the  more  curious  to  trace 
out  the  religious  basis  of  Socialism  because  a  large 
proportion  of  Socialists  are  under  the  illusion  that 


1 32 


GREAT  ISSUES 


they  have  renounced  religion  altogether  But  the 
great  major  premiss  on  which  the  validity  of  all 
their  reasoning,  and  the  power  of  all  their  proposals, 
depends  is  a  religious  dogma  —  a  dogma,  too, 
which  is  as  hard  to  prove  as  the  dogma  of  the  Pope’s 
infallibility,  because,  like  that,  it  seems  to  be  contra¬ 
dicted  by  the  most  obvious  and  frequent  of  facts. 

What  reason  is  there  for  thinking  that  men  ought 
to  have  equal  opportunities,  equal  advantages, 
equal  enjoyments  in  life?  Socialism  is  the  heroic 
attempt  to  secure  this  equality,  to  pluck  the  fruit 
from  the  greedy  hands  of  the  fortunate,  the  fruit 
grown  on  the  common  earth,  and  to  share  it  with 
all.  But  where  is  the  sanction  for  demanding  that 
equality?  What  evidence  is  there,  in  a  world  of 
inequalities  like  this,  that  such  an  equality  is  possible 
or  intended?  There  is  only  one  dogma  which  can 
justify  the  expectation  or  the  demand.  It  is  the 
dogma  expressed  with  ineffable  simplicity  by  Jesus: 
“One  is  your  Father,  even  God,  and  all  ye  are 
brethren.”  If  that  be  true,  the  ideal  of  Socialism 
has  some  justification;  if  not,  it  is  “the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  dream.” 

It  is  as  curious  that  Socialists  cannot  see  how 
their  theory  depends  on  that  dogma  as  it  is  that 
Christians,  accepting  that  dogma,  do  not  see  whither 
it  leads.  The  dogma  may  be  held  to  be  too  daring; 
it  may  be  considered  unproven;  but  Socialism  re¬ 
quires  it,  and  Christianity,  accepting  it,  is  called  to 
a  distinct  line  of  action.  It  certainly  was  incon- 


SOCIALISM 


*33 


ceivably  daring  of  Jesus  to  say,  “  One  is  your  Father, 
and  all  ye  are  brethren,”  if  He  was  speaking  to  all 
mankind,  and  not  merely  to  His  little  group  of  fol¬ 
lowers.  Yet  no  one  to-day  will  deny  that  He  meant 
humanity  as  such.  The  basis  of  the  Christian  view 
of  life  is  that  all  men  are  brethren.  The  individual 
is  merged  in  the  family,  the  family  in  the  clan,  the 
clan  in  the  nation,  the  nation  in  the  world.  The 
distinctions  are  not  lost,  but  the  distinct  members 
are  made  one. 

It  is  this  dogma,  which  Socialists  commonly 
repress,  or  even  deny,  that  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  most  valuable,  perhaps  the  only  valuable,  thing 
in  Socialism.  Keep  this  dogma  steadily  before  your 
eyes,  and  you  see  an  ideal  of  human  society  unfold¬ 
ing,  an  ideal  of  which  Socialists  gain  brief  and  frag¬ 
mentary  glimpses.  In  the  scientific  view  of  man 
the  individual  is  sacrificed  to  the  race.  There  is 
a  struggle  for  existence ;  the  fittest  survive ;  the  unfit 
are  eliminated.  If  the  race  advances,  it  matters  not 
that  the  advance  is  made  over  the  slain.  Nature, 
as  Science  paints  her,  is  careless  of  the  individual 
life.  Indeed,  the  scene  of  unlimited  competition, 
the  principle  of  “every  man  for  himself  and  devil 
take  the  hindmost,”  is  an  exact  counterpart  in  human 
life  of  what,  according  to  science,  is  going  on  in 
Nature.  Science  treats  man  as  a  part  of  Nature, 
and  cannot  complain  that  man  acts  as  Nature  does. 
Socialism  can  get  no  logical  foothold  in  this  scientific 
view  of  man  and  the  world,  which  has  prevailed  in 


T34 


GREAT  ISSUES 


this  generation.  It  can  secure  a  foothold  only  in 
that  view  of  man  and  the  world  which  takes  God  into 
account,  sees  man  as  the  child  of  God  and  the  world 
as  under  the  government  of  God. 

We  cannot  sacrifice  the  individual  to  the  race. 
The  worth  and  the  rights  of  the  individual  must  be 
maintained;  the  progress  of  the  race  can  only  be 
recognized  in  the  full  assertion  of  the  individual 
claims.  Life  must  be  organized,  States  must  be 
governed,  on  the  principle  that  each  one,  however 
apparently  insignificant,  has  a  right  not  only  to  live 
but  to  live  well.  But  this  fundamental  position, 
fundamental  to  Socialism  and  fundamental  to  reli¬ 
gion,  can  only  be  maintained  by  that  theological 
dogma,  “One  is  your  Father,  even  God,  and  all 
we  are  brethren.” 

Possibly,  then,  we  must  seek  a  new  definition  of 
Socialism,  a  definition  which  travels  beyond  the 
economic  relations  by  which  at  first  sight  the  subject 
seems  to  be  bounded,  and  penetrates  into  those 
moral  and  even  spiritual  depths  on  which  it  actually 
rests.  Human  society  is  like  an  island  which  floats 
on  the  sea  of  the  Infinite.  All  attempts  to  explain 
or  to  order  it  without  reference  to  the  ocean  in 
which  it  floats  necessarily  come  to  grief.  As  Aris¬ 
totle  profoundly  says:  “ Nature  does  not  seem  to 
be  episodic,  made  up  of  phenomena,  like  a  sorry 
tragedy.”  It  is  part,  the  phenomenal  part  —  that 
is,  the  part  which  meets  our  human  senses  —  of  a 
great  spiritual  whole.  Our  chance  of  understanding 


SOCIALISM 


*35 


what  we  see  turns  on  our  capacity  to  take  in  what  we 
do  not  see.  Human  society,  so  far  as  we  see  it, 
made  up  of  transitory  and  even  shifting  phenomena, 
is  but  a  sorry  tragedy.  We  get  no  key  to  it,  no 
artistic  completeness  in  it,  unless  we  can  read  the 
prologue  in  heaven,  and  may  have  a  prophetic  view 
of  the  denouement. 

Our  new  definition  of  Socialism  may  be  brief 
—  the  application  of  our  religion  to  industrial 
organization  and  to  State  life.  If  a  man  has  not  a 
religion,  he  cannot  be  a  Socialist.  He  can  offer  no 
plausible  reason  for  treating  society  as  an  organism 
which  has  any  definite  life  to  develop  or  object  to 
achieve.  Or  if  he  gets  a  brief  view  of  humanity, 
plunging  heavily  through  the  seas  of  change  towards 
some  imagined  shore,  he  can  offer  no  chart  of  the 
voyage  or  steering  for  the  ship.  The  first  thing 
a  Socialist  needs  is  a  religion.  He  must  have  some 
idea  of  a  purpose  in  human  life,  of  an  ideal,  of  a 
Power  which  is  set  on  the  achievement  of  the  ideal. 
Apart  from  this  serene  insight  into  the  truth  of  things 
he  may  be  indignant,  to  the  verge  of  madness, 
with  society  as  it  exists,  he  may  denounce  the  self¬ 
ishness  which  has  profited  by  the  weakness  and  con¬ 
fusion  of  society,  he  may  rouse  the  passion  of  the 
Haves  by  threats  and  of  the  Have-nots  by  promises. 
But  hope  of  effectual  redemption  is  not  in  him;  he 
has  no  light  to  shed  on  the  welter  of  chaos,  no  dy¬ 
namic  to  apply,  to  bring  in  the  Cosmos. 

The  Christian  religion  has  not  hitherto  been 


136 


GREAT  ISSUES 


applied  with  conspicuous  success  to  the  social 
problem.  But  it  is  capable  of  being  applied;  it 
possesses  both  light  and  dynamic  for  the  object  to 
be  attained.  A  new  era  for  Christianity  and  a  new 
era  for  the  world  opens  when  the  question  is  seriously 
raised,  What  has  the  Christian  religion  to  say  about 
industrial  organization  and  the  life  of  a  State? 

It  may  be  useful  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  the 
reasons  for  delay  in  making  this  obvious  application 
of  religion  to  life.  The  tone  of  Christianity  was  in 
the  first  instance  set  by  the  necessity  of  conflict 
with  a  very  powerful  State  organization,  the  Graeco- 
Roman  power.  That  figured  itself  to  the  sorrowful 
fears  and  hopes  of  the  first  Christians  as  a  monster 
that  must  be  overcome  and  destroyed.  Instinctively 
these  early  believers  clutched  at  the  fragmentary 
promises  of  a  life  beyond  this  world,  and  passed 
lightly  over  the  promises  for  the  regeneration  of 
earthly  life,  which  were  really  the  main  burden  of 
Christ’s  message  to  men.  The  fateful  blunder 
of  the  eremitic  and  ascetic  life  crept  in  from  Judaism 
and  heathenism.  Men  fled  to  solitary  cells  in  the 
Thebaid  to  escape  from  a  corrupt  and  incorrigible 
world.  That  error  haunts  us  still. 

But  when  the  Roman  Empire  itself  became 
Christian,  as  Dante  saw,  the  gift  of  Constantine  was 
the  Church’s  material  blessing  and  spiritual  malison. 
Fr  m  the  age  of  Constantine  to  the  Reformation 
the  Christian  religion  left  the  ideas  of  its  Founder 
and  the  Apostles,  and  developed  an  idea  of  a  totally 


SOCIALISM 


I37 


different  kind.  The  Church  replaced  the  empire 
and  the  Pope  the  Emperor.  In  the  powerful 
imperial  organization  of  the  Western  Church  social 
reconstruction  was  not  ignored;  but  it  rested  upon 
a  false  principle.  The  Church  as  a  hierarchy  used 
its  power  to  make  itself  incredibly  wealthy,  while 
it  taught  the  masses  of  the  people  the  blessings  of 
poverty.  So  inherent  was  the  error  that  the  religious 
orders,  which  invariably  started  with  vows  of  pov¬ 
erty,  drew  to  themselves  more  and  more  of  the 
wealth  of  the  community,  until  they  became  a  peril 
to  the  State.  The  Catholic  Church  had  the  social 
organization  of  Europe  in  her  hands,  with  practically 
undisputed  power,  for  more  than  a  millennium. 
But  the  results  were  enough  to  justify  the  Socialistic 
suspicion  of  Christianity.  The  poverty  and  degra¬ 
dation  of  mediaeval  cities,  not  so  much  relieved  as 
fostered  by  the  charity  of  the  religious  Orders;  the 
helpless  dependence  of  the  people  on  their  lords, 
in  Church  and  in  State;  the  ravages  of  the  plague, 
the  slaughter  in  the  endless  wars,  the  repression  of 
industry  by  artificial  restrictions,  made  a  society 
which  seethed  with  discontent  and  festered  in  misery. 
The  Church  clung  to  the  position  that  she  held  the 
keys  of  the  future  life,  and  opened  the  gates  of 
heaven  or  purgatory  to  her  children  at  will;  but  she 
used  these  visionary  and  terrific  powers  to  aggrandize 
and  enrich  herself.  Here  in  England  our  litera¬ 
ture  begins  in  Piers  Plowman  and  Chaucer  with 
scathing  revelations  of  the  Church’s  greed  and 


GREAT  ISSUES 


138 

rapacity.  The  Catholic  religion  is  hampered  with 
the  past;  not  only  so,  her  principles,  wherever  they 
have  free  scope,  always  produce  the  same  results 
to-day.  When  modern  France  found  herself  com¬ 
pelled  to  deal  with  the  religious  Orders  as  the  main 
obstacle  to  national  stability,  and  demanded  their 
registration  in  order  to  assert  some  power  of  con¬ 
trol,  the  same  kind  of  facts  came  to  light  as  in  the 
dissolution  of  the  religious  houses  in  England 
nearly  four  centuries  before.  Vast  accumulations  of 
wealth,  cruelties  and  abuses  of  spiritual  power,  and 
the  other  corruptions  of  the  conventual  system,  had 
rendered  these  Orders  a  disease  and  peril  to  the 
state.  Nothing,  therefore,  can  be  considered  more 
demonstrated  by  experience  than  this,  that  there  is 
no  hope  of  social  reconstruction  in  Christianity 
organized  as  Catholicism.  The  antagonism  which 
is  most  plainly  marked  in  the  most  Catholic  country 
in  Europe,  Belgium,  between  Socialists  and  Catholics 
is  radical  and  inevitable. 

In  this  connection  the  achievement  of  Protestan¬ 
tism  is  rather  in  winning  freedom  than  in  the  direct 
effect  of  its  specific  organizations  on  the  social 
question.  It  is  a  melancholy  task  to  follow  the  career 
of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  Germany.  Luther  him¬ 
self  approved  of  the  repression  of  the  peasants,  whose 
aspirations  had  been  fired  by  the  gospel  of  freedom 
which  he  preached  and  by  the  Bible  which  he  had 
translated.  Thus  it  became  clear  that  the  Refor¬ 
mation  was  not  to  be  desired  as  another  Catholicism, 


SOCIALISM 


x39 


however  reformed,  but  only  as  a  liberation,  once  and 
for  ever,  from  a  discredited  and  outworn  expression 
of  the  Christian  religion.  The  Socialists  of  Germany 
regard  the  Lutheran  Church  just  as  the  Socialists 
of  Belgium  regard  the  Catholic  Church,  with  the 
same  sick  disappointment,  the  same  deliberate 
hostility.  Indeed,  every  Church  which  becomes 
strong  enough  to  claim  and  exercise  a  magisterium 
over  men  falls  to  the  same  conclusion,  incurs  the 
same  enmity,  and  becomes  the  same  kind  of  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  social  reconstruction. 

We  need  not  wonder,  therefore,  that  Socialists 
have  been,  and  are  still,  making  their  efforts  apart 
from,  and  in  hostility  to,  the  Churches.  And  yet 
they  are  confronted  by  the  radical  impossibility  of 
accomplishing  anything  without  religion.  If  Chris¬ 
tianity  will  not  serve,  they  must  wait  until  a  ser¬ 
viceable  religion  emerges.  But  it  may  be  submitted 
as  at  least  an  arguable  position  that  Christianity 
would  serve,  and  will  serve,  admirably,  if  only  we 
mean  by  it  the  religion  of  Christ  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  religion  that  He  taught,  the  religion  which 
centres  in  His  Person,  His  activity,  His  spiritual 
presence  with  men. 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  religion  of 
Christ,  and  see  what  bearing  it  has  upon  industrial 
organization  and  the  life  of  a  State. 

Pure  Christianity,  before  it  was  defiled  by  eccle¬ 
siastical  ambition,  or  corrupted  by  sophistical 
casuistry,  was,  and  still  is,  a  Socialism  of  a  very 


140 


GREAT  ISSUES 


distinct,  though  unusual,  type.  Mr.  W.  L.  Walker, 
in  his  book  called  “The  Teaching  of  Christ  in  its 
Present  Appeal,” 1  has  succeeded  in  making  this 
clear.  Perhaps  I  may  borrow  a  passage  from  this 
valuable  source:  “There  were  special  reasons  why 
Christ,  if  His  teaching  was  not  to  be  misapprehended 
amidst  the  conditions  and  expectations  of  His  time, 
refrained  from  directly  dealing  with  certain  promi¬ 
nent  forms  of  evil.  But  the  same  reasons  do  not 
exist  for  us.  To  His  disciples  He  said,  ‘What  I 
tell  you  in  the  darkness,  speak  ye  in  the  light :  and 
what  ye  hear  in  the  ear  proclaim  upon  the  house¬ 
tops.’  The  disciples  could  do  what  it  was  impossible 
for  the  Master  Himself  to  effect.  He  looks  to  us 
to  take  up  and  carry  on  to  its  completion  the  work 
He  began  —  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  the  earth.  The  means  of  social  amelioration 
and,  what  is  still  more  important,  of  the  prevention 
of  social  evils  were  not  at  the  command  of  Christ  and 
His  immediate  disciples  as  they  are  at  our  command 
to-day.  Opinions  may  differ  amongst  conscientious 
Christians  who  would  fain  be  loyal  to  their  Master 
in  this  great  service  as  to  what  is  just  and  right  and 
best  to  be  done  for  the  sake  of  their  poorer  brethren. 
Here  the  mind  as  well  as  the  heart  must  be  exercised, 
so  as  to  give  the  truest  and  most  effective  expression 
to  our  love  of  God  and  man.  If  we  Christians  will 
not  make  the  needful  investigations,  and  give  the 
patient  thought  that  these  matters  call  for,  we  are 

1  James  Clark  &  Co. 


SOCIALISM 


141 

just  as  truly  disloyal  to  our  Master  as  if  the  love 
itself  were  absent  from  our  hearts.  We  must  love 
God  with  all  our  heart  and  soul  and  strength  and 
mind.  No  doubt  there  are  economic  laws  unalter¬ 
able  as  are  the  laws  of  Nature.  But  Love  can  guide 
and  modify  and  act  through  these  laws  just  as  it 
does  with  physical  laws,  which,  left  to  themselves, 
would  play  havoc  and  cause  devastation.  There 
are  no  laws  that  will  not  serve  a  Love  wisely  directed ; 
for  that  is  God  Himself  in  man.  And  while  opinions 
may  differ  as  to  what  is  best  to  be  done,  we  may, 
surely,  say  safely,  in  the  light  of  Christ’s  teachings 
and  purpose,  and  following  the  suggestions  of  the 
author  of  ‘  Ecce  Homo,’  whatever  hinders  the  attain¬ 
ment  of  a  true  and  full  Humanity  on  the  part  of  every 
man  and  woman  ought  to  be  removed,  and  whatever 
is  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  human  beings 
as  our  Father  in  heaven  means  them  to  exist  ought 
to  be  supplied  or  made  possible  for  all.”  1 

It  will  be  seen  in  these  penetrating  words  that 
Christianity,  understood  as  the  religion  of  Christ, 
firmly  establishes  the  presuppositions  of  Socialism, 
viz.,  the  solidarity  of  humanity  and  the  intrinsic 
right  of  the  individual  to  a  share  in  the  advantages 
of  the  earth  and  the  sea  and  the  sky  as  the  common 
habitation  of  men.  It  secures  a  principle  by  the 
highest  sanction,  which  Socialists  without  Chris¬ 
tianity  cannot  establish,  or  can  establish  only  by 
that  force  majeure  which  it  is  the  very  object  of 

1  Op.  cit.  pp.  140,  141. 


142 


GREAT  ISSUES 


social  development  to  dispense  with.  The  under¬ 
lying  foundation  principles  of  Socialism,  perhaps, 
rather  than  Socialism  itself,  are  secured  by  the 
Christian  religion.  Socialism,  as  we  know  it,  as 
it  is  commonly  understood,  may  be  an  incorrect 
deduction  from  the  premisses;  and,  indeed,  too 
often,  it  is  the  fierce  denial  of  the  truth  which  alone 
is  the  major  premiss  of  the  argument,  so  that  the  red 
Socialist  is  often  in  the  position  of  the  man  who  sat 
on  the  sign-post  to  saw  it  down.  But  the  deep,  secure 
foundation  of  all  social  amelioration  is  laid  by  Chris¬ 
tianity,  not  by  the  teaching  of  Christ  alone,  but  by 
Christ  being  what  He  is.  It  would  be  well  if  we 
could  succeed  in  stating  this  deep  and  abiding  truth 
about  man  which  is  given  to  the  world  in  Christ. 

Mankind  is  conceived  as  one,  an  organism  in  which 
each  individual  is  a  member,  and  the  Head  of  the 
whole  is  Christ.  It  is  therefore  at  once  established 
that  while  there  are  varieties  of  function,  there  are 
not  varieties  of  importance.  Each  unit  has  its  place 
in  the  body;  the  more  prominent  cannot  depreciate 
the  more  obscure,  the  comely  cannot  slight  the  un¬ 
comely,  the  great  cannot  dispense  with  the  small. 
In  order  to  press  the  solidarity,  the  image  of  the 
Body  is  used.  Each  human  being  has  his  rights. 
It  is  all  for  each  and  each  for  all.  They  are  members 
one  of  another.  They  are  all  their  brother’s  keepers. 
If  one  member  suffers,  the  whole  suffers;  if  one  is 
glad,  all  share  the  gladness.  A  system  of  motor  and 
sensitive  nerves  connects  all  in  one.  The  injury  of 


SOCIALISM 


I43 


one  thrills  through  the  whole  system.  The  miscon¬ 
duct  of  one  is  the  sin  of  the  whole.  No  one  can  get 
out  of  the  Body;  no  one  can  renounce  his  respon¬ 
sibility  for  the  rest.  The  solidarity  is  not  that  of 
an  inorganic  mass;  it  is  not  even  that  of  gravita¬ 
tion;  it  is  that  of  an  organism. 

But  in  order  to  press  the  significance  and  value 
of  the  individual  the  image  of  the  family  is  used. 
The  true  secret  of  humanity  is  that  God  is  the 
Father,  and  all  men  are  brethren.  Mr.  Egerton 
Young  gives  an  exquisite  episode  in  his  mission  to  a 
tribe  of  red  men,  who  had  never  heard  the  gospel 
before.  He  dwelt  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God  with 
great  earnestness.  Presently  a  chief,  in  his  feathers 
and  deerskin,  rose  and  said,  “White  man,  do  you 
say  that  God  is  the  Father  of  the  white  men?” 
“Yes.”  “And  is  He  the  Father  of  the  red  men?” 
“Yes.”  “Then  the  red  men  and  the  white  are 
brothers?”  “Yes.”  “Why  did  not  our  white 
brothers,  if  they  knew  it,  come  and  tell  us  this 
before?” 

There  can  be  no  perfectly  right  industrial  or 
social  relations  between  men  unless  they  realize 
this  fundamental  fact  of  their  common  humanity. 
The  Greeks  had  a  glimmer  of  the  truth  that  all 
Hellenes  were  related ;  but  the  rest  of  mankind  were 
barbarians,  and  slaves  were  not  included  in  humanity. 
The  Jews  recognized  a  kinship  in  Israel,  and  did 
not  suffer  an  Israelite  to  be  a  slave.  The  English¬ 
man  has  a  kind  of  exclusive  family  feeling.  Blacks 


144 


GREAT  ISSUES 


and  other  foreigners  are  inferior.  But  he  does  not 
carry  his  admiration  for  his  own  race  into  any 
friendliness  towards  Englishmen  as  English;  rather 
he  brings  his  contempt  for  other  races  into  his  feeling 
for  different  classes  among  his  own  people.  He 
repudiates  the  brotherhood  of  man;  but  he  equally 
repudiates  brotherhood  with  lower  orders,  or  with 
Dissenters  of  every  kind,  or  with  persons  of  different 
political  opinions. 

But,  in  contrast  with  this  racial  or  national  or 
social  exclusiveness,  Christianity  asserts  the  brother¬ 
hood  of  men,  based  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
Of  course,  it  is  evident  at  a  glance  how  thoroughly 
un-Christian,  and  even  anti-Christian,  much  of 
the  organized  Christianity  of  our  day  is.  But  we 
are  not  now  concerned  with  the  petrifactions  of 
obsolete  systems  which  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
Christian  name.  The  fundamental  principle  of 
the  Christian  religion,  as  it  stood  over  against  Ju¬ 
daism  and  Hellenism  at  the  beginning,  and  as  it 
stands  over  against  Churches  and  systems  to-day, 
is  a  vast,  searching,  transcendental,  and  yet  practical 
dogma,  “One  is  your  Father,  even  God,  and  all 
ye  are  brethren. ” 

Now,  here  is  the  only  secure  principle  of  in¬ 
dustrial  organization.  We  trade  as  brothers;  our 
object  is  to  benefit  one  another;  if  we  have  our 
personal  ends  to  serve,  they  are  strictly  subordinated 
to  the  general  good.  A  gain  of  mine  which  wrongs 
others  is  illegitimate.  The  only  legitimate  gain 


SOCIALISM 


145 


benefits  the  whole  body.  The  system  of  greedy 
competition,  the  unprincipled  exploitation  of  labour 
to  pile  up  fabulous  wealth,  the  steady  use  of  an 
economic  “law  ”  of  wages  to  press  the  wage  down 
to  a  starvation  limit,  the  brutal  use  of  accumulated 
wealth  to  curtail  or  destroy  the  rights  of  the  workers 
—  this  whole  system  stands  revealed  in  the  light 
of  the  Christian  religion  as  not  only  immoral  but 
criminal.  The  speculator  or  financier  may  come 
within  the  grasp  of  the  law  on  technical  grounds 
as  dishonest,  the  millionaire  may  be  mulcted  by  a 
progressive  income  tax,  an  outraged  community 
may  take  vengeance  on  notorious  delinquents.  But 
behind  all  these  outward  signs  lies  the  deeper  reality 
of  right  and  wrong.  Every  action  between  man  and 
man  which  is  unsuitable  between  brothers  stands 
condemned  in  the  eyes  of  their  common  Father. 

If  men  are  fallen  into  poverty,  they  are  still 
brothers.  The  Union  does  not  erect  a  barrier 
between  the  brothers,  or  snap  the  family  tie.  The 
poverty  is  a  clear  claim  on  the  community  for  help 
and  relief.  A  relief  which  feeds  instead  of  removing 
the  poverty  is  no  relief.  The  interest  of  the  rich 
is  to  remove  the  poverty  of  their  poorer  brothers. 
To  enjoy  vast  wealth  in  face  of  hopeless  poverty 
is  inhuman;  but  it  is  un-Christian  and  godless  too. 
From  this  point  of  view  it  is  evidently  the  object 
of  all  political  or  municipal  organization  to  equalize 
opportunities  for  all,  to  train  all  to  take  their  part 
efficiently  in  the  body-politic,  and  to  succour  those 


146 


GREAT  ISSUES 


who,  through  infirmity  or  misfortune,  are  disqualified. 
It  is  a  recognized  duty  to  minister  to  the  sick.  The 
hospital,  the  nurse,  the  doctor  are  at  hand  for  all 
diseases.  It  is  no  less  a  duty  to  minister  to  the  un¬ 
fortunate,  to  those  who  by  a  turn  of  the  industrial 
machine,  or  by  the  fluctuations  of  commerce,  or 
by  the  very  nature  of  their  employment,  are  put  at 
a  disadvantage  and  unable  to  earn  their  living. 
A  useless  individual  in  a  community  is  a  disease: 
the  healthy  organism  brings  its  curative  forces  to 
bear  on  the  diseased  spot.  The  idle  rich  who  waste 
their  manhood  in  dissipation  are  a  disease.  The 
idle  poor  who  cannot  get  work  to  do,  or  are  un¬ 
trained  to  do  it,  are  a  disease.  The  two  diseases 
appear  to  be  mutually  related.  A  healthy  community 
strives  to  cure  them  both.  And  yet  prevention 
is  more  important  than  cure.  Legislation  and  ad¬ 
ministration  should  study  to  prevent  the  diseases 
in  the  body- politic.  We  make  too  much  of  military 
defences  against  foreign  aggression.  We  waste 
our  substance  in  preparing  for  war,  and  in  nourish¬ 
ing  a  hostile  spirit  to  other  nations,  forgetting  that 
they  too  are  our  brothers.  But  we  do  not  give  any¬ 
thing  like  sufficient  attention  to  internal  defence, 
to  securing  ourselves  against  the  diseases  which  sap 
our  strength.  The  ideal  which  is  dictated  by  our 
brotherhood  is,  as  a  minimum,  this:  That  every 
human  being  born  in  our  country  should  be  trained 
for  a  definite  work,  and  prepared  for  a  suitable 
and  honourable  place  in  the  social  organism;  that 


SOCIALISM 


147 


each  should  count  as  one,  and  each  one  should  be 
esteemed  important  and  essential.  Education,  op¬ 
portunity,  discipline,  correction,  should  be  given  to 
all,  as  in  a  family,  with  encouragement  for  duti¬ 
fulness  and  efficiency  and  chastisement  for  idleness 
and  uselessness,  chastisement  tempered  with  mercy 
and  with  the  strong  desire  to  redeem. 

This  may  be  called  the  fundamental  Socialism 
of  Christianity;  and  in  this  sense  we  would  recast 
our  new  definition  of  Socialism,  as  Christianity 
applied  to  our  industrial  organization  and  to  our 
State  life. 

But  whether  this  fundamental  principle  can  be 
best  worked  out  by  what  is  called  State  Socialism 
is  a  question  which  remains  sub  judice.  Communism 
is  abandoned.  Fourier’s  phalansteries  and  Owen’s 
communistic  settlements  are  clearly  impracticable. 
A  Socialist,  in  spite  of  the  lingering  ignorance  of  the 
subject  which  still  survives,  is  not  one  who  asks 
for  a  crude  redistribution  of  property.  In  the  story 
of  an  earlier  date  the  Rothschild  of  the  time,  con¬ 
fronted  by  the  Socialist  demanding  the  redistribu¬ 
tion  of  his  wealth,  replied:  “I  have  worked  it  out, 
and  find  that  my  property  if  divided  would  give 
fourpence  a  head  to  our  population.  There”  — 
giving  him  a  fourpenny-piece  —  “take  your  share 
and  be  gone.”  No,  the  Socialist  is  not  a  com¬ 
munist.  But  he  thinks  he  sees  a  way  of  reclaiming 
for  the  community  the  land  which  has  passed  into 
private  ownership;  or  he  thinks  that  the  capital 


148 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  country  can  be  claimed  by  the  country.  Or 
possibly  he  confines  his  attention  to  municipal 
Socialism;  the  municipality  can  possess  the  com¬ 
modities  and  conveniences  —  lighting,  locomotion, 
etc.  —  on  which  the  comfort  and  life  of  the  com¬ 
munity  depend.  Or  it  can  assert  its  right  to  the 
land  on  which  the  town  stands,  and  purchase  it  at 
its  prairie  value.  It  would  be  a  great  convenience 
if  Socialism  had  a  mouthpiece  which  could  speak 
for  all.  As  it  is,  using  a  common  name  for  very 
dissimilar  proposals,  Socialists  appear  to  be  much 
stronger  than  they  actually  are.  In  the  vast  and 
wandering  programme  of  Socialism  there  are  things 
which  are  desirable  and  possible;  there  are  other 
things  which  are  desirable  but  impossible;  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  there  are  some  which  are  possible 
and  not  desirable. 

Nothing  could  be  more  desirable  than  the  State 
ownership  of  all  the  land  so  that  rents  would  go 
into  the  common  purse  instead  of  into  the  pockets 
of  individuals.  Henry  George’s  noble  eloquence 
and  passion  for  humanity  in  “Progress  and  Poverty” 
made  many  think  that  what  was  so  plainly  desirable 
must  be  possible.  But  is  it  possible?  In  a  State 
where  private  property  in  land  has  been  admitted 
for  centuries,  can  the  land  be  advantageously  bought 
back  from  the  owners?  To  expropriate  them  would 
obviously  be  a  fatal  start  for  social  regeneration; 
it  would  establish  the  principle  of  securing  justice 
by  injustice,  of  wronging  a  large  number  of  individuals 


SOCIALISM 


149 


in  order  to  right  the  rest.  There  can  therefore  be 
no  serious  thought  of  reclaiming  the  land  from 
private  ownership  without  compensation.  But  if  it 
is  to  be  bought,  would  it  be  worth  the  price?  The 
principle  of  State  ownership  of  land  would  seem 
to  be  admirable  for  a  new  country  like  New  Zealand. 
But  unfortunately,  in  a  new  country  the  first  concern 
is  to  get  the  land  occupied  and  cultivated,  and  a 
young  community  is  only  too  thankful  to  make 
grants  of  land,  and  to  offer  as  an  inducement  the 
“magic  of  property,”  that  its  citizens  may  do  that 
indispensable  tilling  of  the  soil  on  which  the  pros¬ 
perity  of  all  States  rests. 

The  proposal,  therefore,  which  is  most  char¬ 
acteristically  socialistic,  to  destroy  private  property 
in  land,  is  as  a  measure  of  practical  politics  chimerical. 
It  might  be  effected  by  a  revolution,  but  only  by 
such  a  revolution  as  would  make  a  wise  and  stable 
reconstruction  of  society  impossible  for  generations. 
It  would  always  seem  as  if  the  new  State  had  been 
founded  on  robbery,  and  that  would  vitiate  its  growth. 
It  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  truth  that,  if  the  sense  of 
property  and  respect  for  the  right  of  ownership  were 
destroyed,  the  dissolution  of  all  social  ties  would 
rapidly  follow.  “What’s  mine  is  mine”  has  an  un¬ 
pleasant  and  selfish  sound  to  sensitive  altruistic  ears. 
But  the  negative  proposition,  if  one  can  imagine 
it  taken  seriously,  “What  is  mine  is  not  mine,”  with 
the  correlative  truth,  “What  is  thine  is  not  thine 
nor  is  anything  anybody’s,”  would  mean  a  kind  of 


GREAT  ISSUES 


150 

delirium,  a  welter  of  chaos,  in  which  human  life, 
at  least  as  it  is  organized  and  civilized,  might  be 
submerged.  The  chimera,  then,  if  I  may  venture 
to  call  it  so,  of  land  nationalization  is  injurious  to 
Socialism  —  it  is  too  Fabian;  it  hinders  possible 
advance  by  distracting  the  imagination  with  the 
impossible.  It  serves  a  useful  purpose  only  so  far 
as  it  keeps  before  the  community  a  truism,  which 
owners  of  property  too  easily  forget,  viz.,  that  the 
whole  community  has  a  latent  right  in  the  land  of 
the  country,  and  private  property  is  allowed  only  on 
the  implicit  understanding  that  this  latent  right  is 
secured.  We  are  all  bound  to  live  on  God’s  earth, 
and  we  depend  upon  it  for  our  meat  and  raiment. 
Private  ownership  therefore  is  limited  by  the  obliga¬ 
tion  of  the  land  of  a  country  to  provide  food  and 
clothing,  standing-room  and  housing  for  all  its  in¬ 
habitants.  If  a  few  thousands  own  the  land  of 
England,  they  must  accept  the  responsibility  of 
securing  the  necessaries  of  life  for  the  other  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  this  island.  Ownership  of  land  can  never 
mean  the  right  to  forbid  the  people  of  a  country  to 
live  on  the  land,  or  to  live  by  the  land.  The  chimera 
of  land  nationalization  may  force  upon  the  attention 
of  the  country  this  forgotten  truism. 

The  socialization  of  capital  and  the  means  of 
production  might  conceivably  be  possible.  As 
Edward  Bellamy  pointed  out,  the  vast  growth  of  the 
Trusts,  and  the  complete  organization  of  certain 
departments  of  the  State  service,  armies,  posts, 


SOCIALISM 


ISI 

railways,  &c.,  seem  to  point  in  the  direction  of  a 
final  logical  step,  by  which  one  Trust  will  own  and 
manage  all  the  industries,  manufactures,  and  enter¬ 
prises  of  the  State,  and  that  Trust  will  be  the  State 
itself.  It  may  be  that  this  is  the  evolutionary  de¬ 
velopment  which  underlies  the  present  chaos  of 
industrial  life.  If  it  be  so,  the  Fabians  are  probably 
right  in  thinking  that  it  will  realize  itself  by  an  inner 
necessity.  It  is  needless  for  any  one  to  expedite 
a  Cosmic  incontrollable  force  of  this  kind.  But 
meanwhile  the  preliminary  expressions  of  this  com¬ 
ing  State  socialism,  so  far  from  being  welcome, 
are  the  things  which  Socialism  most  dislikes.  The 
Standard  Oil  Trust  in  America  shows  the  most 
hopeful  line  for  achieving  a  socialistic  result.  Com¬ 
petition  in  that  industry  is  eliminated.  In  place  of 
the  fierce  war  of  competition  is  the  tranquil  security 
of  the  Trust.  The  individuals  have  become  the 
docile  members  of  this  larger  organism,  controlled 
by  one  authority.  Substitute  for  Mr.  Rockefeller 
the  State,  and  extend  the  principle  of  the  Oil  Trust 
to  all  trades,  and  you  have  State  Socialism  as  a 
fait  accompli.  But  Socialists  do  not  value  or  pro¬ 
mote  the  process  which  is  to  achieve  the  end. 

Just  as  little  do  Socialists  like  that  military  or¬ 
ganization  of  a  whole  country,  whether  in  Germany 
or  in  Russia,  which  furnishes  the  best  ground  plan 
on  which  an  industrial  organization  of  the  State 
might  be  achieved.  Even  Germans  resent  the  inter¬ 
ference  with  their  liberty  which  such  an  organization 


*52 


GREAT  ISSUES 


involves.  Would  Englishmen,  who  decline  a  con¬ 
scription,  consent  to  an  industrial  system  on  the 
same  plan  ?  Would  they  buy  security  of  daily 
bread  and  clothing  by  the  surrender  of  that  freedom, 
and  that  joy  of  enterprise,  which  are  to  them  as  the 
breath  of  life?  One  cannot  resist  the  feeling  that, 
if  the  socialization  of  industries  is  the  fate  which 
looms  in  the  future  for  Western  civilization,  if  some 
day  all  trades  will  be  like  the  Post  Office  in  England, 
or  like  the  railways  in  Germany,  the  emigration  from 
these  Western  lands  will  be  rapid.  All  who  love 
freedom  and  enterprise,  all  who  rejoice  in  the  keen 
conflict  of  wits  and  faculties,  all  who  realize  that 
life  is  expansion,  effort,  and  failure,  and  hope  of 
success,  will  seek  to  escape  from  the  new  Socialist 
regime ,  and  find  their  felicity  in  far  Cathay,  or  any 
part  of  the  earth’s  surface  where  Socialism  is  not  yet 
established. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  more  limited  application 
of  the  Socialist  principle  to  municipalities  and 
urban  areas,  or  even  to  agricultural  districts,  may 
be  at  once  desirable  and  possible.  And  it  is  in  this 
direction  that  practical  Socialists  for  the  most  part, 
renouncing  chimerical  dreams,  are  pressing. 

We  are  timid  enough  even  here.  The  mere 
suggestion  of  a  socialistic  Council  produces  a  wild 
reaction,  engineered  by  affrighted  Property.  To 
municipalize  the  water,  or  the  electricity,  or  the 
traction  of  a  town,  raises  not  only  the  opposition 
of  the  interests  which  have  grown  up  by  the  ex- 


SOCIALISM 


*53 


ploitation  of  the  community,  but  also  the  suspicions 
of  those  individualists  and  lovers  of  liberty  who 
feel  that  the  value  of  life  and  the  efficiency  of  work 
are  formed  only  in  the  untrammelled  exercise  of 
personal  ambition.  But  most  men  can  see  the  im¬ 
policy  of  allowing  the  water  supply  of  a  city  to  be 
in  private  hands,  to  yield  vast  profits,  such  as  raised 
the  £i  share  of  the  New  River  Company  to  the 
value  of  ^30,000,  and  to  be  purchased  eventually  by 
the  community  at  a  ruinous  and  well-nigh  impossible 
price. 

Most  people  are  now  prepared  for  the  direction 
of  the  planning  and  building  of  cities  by  the  munici¬ 
pality  itself,  to  secure  the  health,  convenience,  and 
beauty  of  the  whole.  Most  people  see  that  in  a  city 
at  any  rate  the  unearned  increment  of  the  land 
values  should  be  claimed  for  the  public,  and  not 
left  to  private  ownership.  No  theory  of  private 
ownership  can  show  my  title  to  the  enhanced  value 
of  my  acres  which  chance  to  be  in  a  town  area, 
a  value  which  is  not  due  to  anything  I  give  or  do, 
but  arises  entirely  from  the  industry  of  others. 

And  even  in  agricultural  areas,  the  difficulty 
and  the  decay  of  the  agricultural  industry  are  open¬ 
ing  our  eyes  to  see  that  co-operation  and  the  action 
of  local  authorities  are  needed  to  make  this  industry 
successful  in  the  peculiar  conditions  of  our  insular 
civilization. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  proposals  which 
are  held  to  be  distinctively  socialistic  must  be  con- 


*54 


GREAT  ISSUES 


sidered  in  a  dispassionate  way,  and  with  an  open 
mind.  They  must  not  be  confused  with  the  socialistic 
principle  itself.  That  principle  may  be  right  — 
and,  indeed,  must  be  and  obviously  is  right  —  and 
yet  these  proposals  may  be  misguided  or  chimerical 
attempts  to  realize  it. 

The  principle  is  firmly  established  in  the  Em¬ 
pyrean,  and  must  by  the  favour  of  Heaven  with 
more  or  less  celerity  invade  and  occupy  the  earth. 
It  is  one  with  the  reality  of  God  and  with  the  truth 
of  the  Incarnation.  Difficult  or  impossible  of 
proof  on  empirical  grounds,  incredible  to  pagan 
thinkers  like  Aristotle,  illogical  to  materialistic 
thinkers  like  Haeckel,  it  is  proved  and  self-evident 
directly  God  is  apprehended  as  the  Father  of  men, 
and  human  life  is  seen  as  the  probation  and  op¬ 
portunity  given  to  men  on  this  planet  to  become  in 
effect,  as  they  potentially  are,  the  sons  of  God. 

Sacred  and  wonderful  is  this  sonship  and  implied 
brotherhood.  What  joy  or  prosperity  is  possible 
for  me  while  my  brothers  suffer  or  are  disqualified, 
unless  it  be  the  joy  of  seeking  to  help  them,  and  the 
prosperity  which  consists  in  succeeding?  Of  what 
intrinsic  value  is  wealth  unless  it  be  in  widest  com¬ 
monalty  spread?  What  comfort  in  my  mansion, 
what  pleasure  in  my  pleasance,  which  simply  shuts 
out  my  brothers?  What  satisfaction  is  there  in 
making  money  unless  it  makes  men  ?  If  my  money¬ 
making  does  not  bless  others,  but  even  curses  them, 
how  can  I  sleep  on  downy  pillows,  haunted  by 


SOCIALISM 


I55 


visions  of  the  waste  and  ruin  and  degradation  of 
my  brothers  and  sisters?  What  other  thought  can 
I  form  of  my  personal  good  than  that  which  comes  — 

.  .  when  all  men’s  good 
Is  each  man’s  rule,  and  universal  Peace 
Lies  like  a  shaft  of  light  across  the  land, 

And  like  a  lane  of  beams  athwart  the  sea, 

Thro’  all  the  circle  of  the  Golden  Year!” 


CHAPTER  VI 


PHILOSOPHY 

A  witty  and  paradoxical  philosopher  of  our 
time  has  maintained  that  every  man  must  have, 
and  has,  a  philosophy.  He  may  not  be  a  disciple  of 
the  Porch,  or  wear  the  Stoic  fur,  he  may  be  ignorant 
of  the  distinction  between  realism  and  idealism, 
and  may  think  that  the  sensational  philosophy  has 
something  to  do  with  detective  stories  or  with  the 
Yellow  Press;  but,  for  all  his  ignorance  of  techni¬ 
calities,  he  is  a  philosopher.  He  has  a  mode  of 
looking  at  things,  his  own  explanation  of  the  mystery 
of  life,  his  vision  of  man  and  of  God,  of  the  world 
as  phenomenal,  and  of  the  noumenal  world  which 
phenomena  presuppose.  And  this  purely  personal 
interpretation  of  totality  is  his,  or  in  the  case  of  a 
woman  —  for  I  do  not  understand  Mr.  Chesterton 
to  deny  woman  this  kind  of  suffrage  —  her,  phi¬ 
losophy. 

There  is  something  decidedly  attractive  in  this 
universality  of  handling  a  subject,  in  this  all-in¬ 
clusive  hospitality  of  the  Philosopher’s  House. 
Surely  the  prejudice  against  philosophy  —  which 
we  must  own  is  widespread  —  will  immediately 

156 


PHILOSOPHY 


157 


give  way,  surely  the  suspicion  of  philosophers  which 
practical  men,  for  example,  entertain  will  pass  into 
genial  appreciation,  if  it  is  established  that  we  are 
all  philosophers,  if  the  practical  man  himself,  and 
even  the  man  in  the  street,  is  convicted  of  belonging 
to  the  suspicious  gang.  But  the  paradox  is  too 
sweeping,  too  disconcerting.  It  is  even  dangerous: 
for  there  is  some  fear  that  if  all  are  to  be  counted 
philosophers,  many  of  the  philosophers  proper  will 
give  up  their  profession  in  dudgeon.  They  paced 
their  Porch,  or  occupied  their  Chair,  on  the  under¬ 
standing  that  they  were  persons  apart;  they  will 
hardly  continue  in  their  occupation  if  the  privilege 
of  distinction,  which  is  commonly  their  sole  earthly 
reward,  is  taken  away  from  them.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer’s  great  Synthetic  Phi¬ 
losophy,  and  the  publication  of  that  immense  series 
of  solid  books,  brought  him  in  little  or  nothing  in 
the  way  of  hard  cash.  His  one  compensation  for 
his  toil  was  that  men  recognized  him  as  an  original 
philosopher,  such  as  the  crowd  could  not  hope  to  be. 
Plato,  we  are  told,  lived  in  great  comfort,  and  even 
luxury;  Diogenes,  entering  his  house  and  treading 
his  carpets,  exclaimed,  “Thus  I  trample  on  the 
pride  of  Plato  !”  “With  no  less  pride  of  thine  own,” 
was  Plato’s  swift  retort.  For  philosophers  have 
always  been  mettlesome,  and  have  seldom  minced 
words  in  speaking  of  one  another.  But  Plato’s 
wealth  was  hereditary,  and  not  earned  by  his  phi¬ 
losophy.  The  philosopher’s,  therefore,  must  be 


GREAT  ISSUES 


158 

considered  an  unremunerative  profession ;  and 
there  seems  little  hope  of  keeping  these  benefactors 
of  the  race  at  their  task,  unless  we  allow  that  they, 
and  they  alone,  are  philosophers,  and  the  rest  of  us 
are  looking  to  them  to  do  our  philosophizing  for 
us. 

While,  however,  it  will  hardly  do  to  say  that  all 
men  have  a  philosophy,  it  may  be  wholesome  for 
some  men,  and  even  for  the  philosophers  themselves, 
to  say  that  all  men  ought  to  have  a  philosophy,  and 
that  the  true  philosophy  must  be  that  which  all 
men  can  have. 

This  consideration  gives  an  interest  to  that  move¬ 
ment  among  thinkers  which  Professor  William 
James  calls  pragmatism.  This  is  a  reaction  to 
what  we  might  call  common-sense,  like  the  phi¬ 
losophy  which  bore  that  name  in  the  last  century. 
When  Hume  by  his  scepticism  had  made  knowledge 
appear  to  be  impossible,  and  Kant  by  his  trans¬ 
cendental  method  had  puzzled  the  ordinary  mind, 
Reid  propounded  a  philosophy  of  common-sense, 
which,  in  Scotland  at  any  rate,  had  a  consider¬ 
able  influence.  In  the  same  way  pragmatism  has 
come  into  the  philosophical  world,  which  was  be¬ 
wildered  by  the  conflict  between  Hegel  and  Herbert 
Spencer,  by  the  absolutism  of  Bradley  and  the  monism 
of  Haeckel.  Hegel  attempted  to  resolve  the  world 
into  a  dialectical  movement,  which  could  be  made 
plausible  by  a  judicious  selection  of  facts.  Spencer 
attempted  to  explain  the  world  and  life  in  terms  of 


PHILOSOPHY 


I59 


evolution,  couched  in  a  cumbersome  formula,  and 
justified  by  the  manipulation  of  a  vast  array  of 
heterogeneous  and  unsifted  instances.  Bradley 
elaborated  a  doctrine  of  the  absolute,  which,  while 
distinguishing  between  appearance  and  reality, 
and  denying  reality  to  appearance,  seemed  to 
leave  the  absolute  without  appearance  or  reality. 
Haeckel,  on  the  other  hand,  attempted  a  monistic 
explanation  of  the  universe  by  firmly  denying  all 
that  could  not  be  explained.  This  philosophy,  if  it 
may  claim  that  name,  explains  God  and  the  soul 
by  getting  rid  of  them,  accounts  for  the  astounding 
process  by  which  life  evolves  out  of  the  inorganic, 
and  species  are  developed,  by  which  the  universe  is 
a  universe  and  not  a  multiverse,  and  the  million 
wonders  of  the  great  framework  harmonize  and 
evolve,  by  simply  pointing  to  the  fact  that  this  is 
what  happens.  Monism  of  this  kind  leaves  no 
logical  room  for  man,  for  freedom,  for  personality. 
Man,  as  a  moment  in  the  series  of  phenomena,  has 
a  place  in  the  evolution  which  is  studied;  but  man, 
as  the  mind  which  is  studying  the  evolution,  as  the 
cognitive  consciousness  which,  if  produced  by  the 
evolution,  as  certainly  transcends  it,  has  no  place 
and  receives  no  explanation.  Haeckel  explains 
everything,  but  is  himself  unexplained.  His  ex¬ 
planation  depends  on  ignoring  the  mind,  conscious 
of  its  own  activity  and  freedom,  which  is  the  organ 
of  the  knowledge.  But  what  trifling  this  seems! 
Knowledge  is  everything,  but  the  knower  and  the 


l6o  GREAT  ISSUES 

knowing  are  nothing.  The  intelligible  world  is 
said  to  be  explained  by  blotting  out  the  intelligence 
to  which  it  is  intelligible.  Herbert  Spencer,  moving 
on  similar  lines  to  Haeckel’s,  always  saved  the 
situation  by  an  illogical  admission  of  the  unknown 
which  explained  the  known.  But  Haeckel  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  an  Unknown.  He  asserted 
that  the  known  was  enough  and  explained  itself. 
This  innocent  and  childlike  philosophy,  too  palpably 
absurd  for  any  one  who  has  begun  to  think ,  produced 
a  reaction.  Nietzsche,  Schopenhauer,  Theosophy, 
Mahatmas,  anything  was  eagerly  snatched  at  to 
save  the  mind  from  that  annihilation  to  which  it 
was  condemned  by  being  identified  with  that  which, 
whatever  it  was,  was  certainly  not  mind.  Schemes 
of  idealistic  monism  have  sprung  into  existence  with 
that  rapidity  and  crudeness  which  results  from  hurry 
and  desperation.  Any  rope  was  seized  to  save  the 
human  mind  engulfed  in  the  whirlpool  of  the 
Haeckelian  monism. 

It  may  be  that  pragmatism  is  only  one  of  the  ropes 
snatched  at  in  a  moment  of  philosophical  despair. 
It  may  be  temporary  and  transitional,  like  the 
Scotch  philosophy  of  common-sense.  But,  mean¬ 
while,  it  has  some  very  serviceable  qualities,  and 
certainly  enables  some  of  us,  who  have  been  be¬ 
wildered  in  the  clash  of  irreconcilable  systems,  to 
find  a  philosophical  foothold.  Now,  pragmatism 
is  a  new  term,  not  yet  found  in  the  dictionaries. 
It  is  a  philosophy  in  being;  and  it  may  be  as  yet 


PHILOSOPHY 


161 


perilous  to  define  it,  for  any  of  its  advocates,  or 
inventors,  may  start  up  and  say,  That  is  not  what 
I  mean  by  it.  But  the  essence  of  the  pragmatic 
situation  is  this,  that  truth  is  that  which  works . 
About  truth,  as  an  absolute,  we  are  not  able  to  speak, 
for  it  must  be  always  relative  to  our  minds  as  know¬ 
ing.  If  any  one  is  bent  on  distinguishing  between 
what  is  and  what  appears  to  our  faculties  of  percep¬ 
tion  and  cognition,  bent  on  asserting  that  what 
appears  to  us  is  only  phenomenal,  but  that  the  real, 
or  the  noumenal,  does  not  and  cannot  appear  to  us, 
the  path  of  scepticism  is  immediately  open  before  us. 
Reality  is,  but  we  cannot  perceive  it.  Truth  is, 
but  we  cannot  know  it.  What  we  perceive  is  merely 
a  phenomenal  world ;  what  we  know  is  not  absolute, 
but  relative.  Reality  and  truth  recede  into  a  world 
of  unreality  and  fiction.  The  humble  attempt  to 
obliterate  ourselves,  who  cognize,  and  to  admit 
“a  thing  in  itself”  apart  from  our  cognition,  results 
in  our  losing  all  reality  and  all  actuality.  The 
absolute  is  there,  but  it  is  nothing  for  us;  we  neither 
perceive  nor  know  it.  Our  perception  and  know¬ 
ledge  are  only  ours,  and  therefore  not  a  reality  apart 
from  us.  Kant,  in  his  immortal  “Critique,”  faced 
this  situation,  and  saw  clearly  that  his  argument 
was  leading  to  scepticism;  the  world  of  knowledge 
was  a  world  made  up  of  the  forms  and  categories 
of  our  own  mind,  and  must  be  distinguished  from 
the  world  of  reality,  the  ding  an  sich.  The  “Cri¬ 
tique”  would  have  led,  and,  taken  alone,  does  lead, 


M 


162 


GREAT  ISSUES 


to  scepticism.  But  Kant  retrieved  the  situation  and 
saved  his  own  philosophy,  perhaps  at  the  expense 
of  consistency,  by  his  work  on  the  Practical  Reason. 
Here  he  recognized  in  the  moral  nature,  and  in  the 
Categorical  Imperative  of  the  moral  sense,  an  inner 
and  immediate  reality.  The  cognitive  being,  man, 
is  also  a  moral  being,  committed  to  a  life  of  action, 
of  choice,  of  conscious  freedom.  If  his  metaphysics 
failed  to  establish  a  world  of  reality  outside  himself, 
his  ethics  established  a  world  of  reality  in  which  he 
is  an  operative  factor.  Here  is  the  fruitful  sugges¬ 
tion  to  which  pragmatism  recurs.  It  is  Kantian, 
in  the  sense  that  it  blends  the  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason  with  the  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason, 
and  emphasizes  the  latter  as  the  key  to  the 
former. 

Hence  Mr.  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  the  liveliest  ex¬ 
ponent  of  pragmatism  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
opens  his  book  called  “Humanism”  with  an  essay 
on  “The  Ethical  Basis  of  Metaphysics.”  The 
very  title  is  caviare  to  the  philosophers  of  the  older 
school.  Metaphysics  and  ethics  were  kept  rigidly 
apart.  In  a  world  of  the  pure  intellect  knowledge 
was  to  reach  its  conclusions  without  thought  of  the 
living,  palpitating  personality  that  was  conducting 
the  inquiry.  Mr.  Bradley,  for  example,  is  mo¬ 
mentarily  disturbed  by  a  doubt  as  to  what  might 
result  in  practice  from  a  position  he  is  maintaining ; 
but  he  brushes  the  doubt  aside:  “But  if  so,  I  may 
be  asked,  what  is  the  result  in  practice.  That,  I 


PHILOSOPHY 


1 63 


reply  at  once,  is  not  my  business.”  Now  the  prag¬ 
matist  admits  that  it  is  his  business,  that  not  only 
is  it  his  business  to  ask  how  a  theory  in  metaphysics 
works,  but  that  the  only  way  of  determining  its 
truth  is  by  the  way  it  works.  It  is  for  the  way  it 
works  that  truth  itself  is  desirable.  A  truth  which 
has  no  bearing,  no  valuable  bearing  at  any  rate, 
on  the  life  and  practice  of  man,  who  is  making  the 
investigation,  is  not  yet  a  truth  at  all.  It  passes 
into  the  realm  of  truth  by  that  very  workableness 
which  the  metaphysician  of  the  old  school  loftily 
ignored.  Thus  Mr.  Schiller’s  definition  of  prag¬ 
matism  is:  “The  thorough  recognition  that  the 
purposive  action  of  mental  life  generally  must  in¬ 
fluence  and  pervade  also  our  most  remotely  cognitive 
faculties.” 

We  do  not  distinguish  between  truth  and  practice; 
truth  is  that  which  works  in  practice.  We  cannot 
set  truth  as  such  over  against  our  knowledge  and  use 
of  it;  of  such  a  truth  in  the  void  we  have  and  can 
have  no  knowledge  whatever;  but  truth  is  that 
which  enters  into  our  experience  and  practice  in 
such  a  way  as  to  be  verified  by  them.  For  example, 
the  reason  for  believing  in  the  reality  of  a  world 
external  to  ourselves  is  that  it  works  beneficially  to 
hold  this  belief.  In  such  a  world  men  have  always 
believed.  That  the  earth  is  solid  under  our  feet, 
and  the  canopy  of  heaven  overarches  us,  that  the 
trees  stand  waving  their  foliage  in  the  summer  breeze 
or  bearing  their  fruit  in  autumn,  and  that  the  fields 


164 


GREAT  ISSUES 


yield  the  grass  for  the  cattle  and  the  grain  for  our¬ 
selves,  that  the  solid  hills  of  our  childhood  are  stand¬ 
ing  there  practically  unchanged  up  to  the  day  when 
we  finally  close  our  eyes  and  are  buried  in  the  church¬ 
yard  at  their  feet,  that  the  metals  are  constant, 
that  the  chemical  elements  are  true  to  their  nature 
of  permanence  or  change,  that  the  order  of  Nature 
is  calculable  and  trustworthy,  neither  the  freak  of 
an  ingenious  mind  nor  liable  to  be  seriously  altered 
by  the  greatest  exertion  of  human  power  —  all 
this  is  true,  not  because  any  evidence  can  be  offered 
for  it  outside  our  own  cognition,  but  because,  within 
our  own  cognition,  to  take  it  as  true  practically 
works.  On  the  other  hand,  to  take  it  all  as  false 
or  as  doubtful  just  as  surely  does  not  work.  When 
the  Hindoo  philosopher  declares  that  the  veil  of 
Maya  is  over  things  and  the  world  of  phenomena 
has  no  existence,  when  he  scorns  the  explanations 
which  are  offered  on  the  basis  of  experience,  and 
prefers  any  fanciful  myth  to  a  vera  causa ,  he  seeks 
for  reality  in  ceasing  to  be.  The  truth  of  an  external 
world,  in  the  last  resort,  merely  means  the  immensely 
superior  result  in  practice  of  granting  its  existence, 
and  the  disastrous  result,  mentally  and  morally,  of 
not  granting  it. 

We  have  touched  the  fundamental  question  first. 
But  what  applies  to  the  reality  of  the  totality  of 
things  applies  equally  to  the  details.  “True  ideas,” 
says  Professor  James,  “are  those  that  we  can  as¬ 
similate,  validate,  corroborate,  and  verify.  False 


PHILOSOPHY 


165 

ideas  are  those  that  we  cannot.”  1  Even  mathe¬ 
matical  truths,  which  are  supposed  to  be  the  most 
certain  of  objective  realities,  are  truths  of  precisely 
the  same  character  as  the  truth  of  the  external  world. 
That  is  to  say,  they  are  verified  entirely  by  the  fact 
that  they  work.  Most  mathematical  processes  are 
deductions  from  certain  axioms  and  postulates  which 
are  given,  and  the  conclusions  are  only  the  de¬ 
monstrable  results  from  these  presuppositions.  We 
are  familiar  with  the  amusing  arguments  which  can 
be  advanced  if  we  start  from  the  assumption  of  a 
space  with  four  dimensions,  or  from  the  assumption 
of  a  spherical  space,  in  which  parallel  lines  would 
ultimately  meet.  But  the  sole  distinction  between 
mathematics  proper  and  these  fanciful  worlds  is 
that  the  axioms  and  postulates  of  mathematics  work; 
experience  confirms  the  suppositions  that  are  made. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  endeavoured  to  live  in  a 
space  of  four  dimensions  or  in  a  spherical  space,  the 
practical  results  would  be  so  confusing  that  our 
fellow-men  would,  however  reprehensibly,  maintain 
us  in  asylums  at  the  public  cost.  In  the  last  resort 
mathematical  truth,  notwithstanding  all  its  show  of 
a  priori  certainty,  is  only  that  which  works.  If 
in  concrete  experience  we  found  a  triangle  in  which 
one  side  was  longer  than  the  other  two,  we  might 
fancy  that  we  were  in  a  nightmare;  but  assured  of 
the  fact,  we  should  surrender  the  venerable  defi¬ 
nition.  If  we  found  that  whenever  we  put  two 

1  “Pragmatism,”  by  Prof.  William  James,  p.  201. 


1 66 


GREAT  ISSUES 


and  two  together  another  invariably  crept  in,  so 
that  the  result  was  five,  we  should  cease  to  hold  the 
antique  doctrine  that  two  and  two  make  four;  for 
it  would  not  work. 

Turning  now  from  truth  in  the  cognitive  sense 
to  truth  in  morals,  we  are  surprised  to  find  how  well 
the  pragmatic  principle  helps  us  to  an  understanding 
of  things.  What  is  morally  right  is  that  which  works 
best.  The  sole  interest  of  men  in  knowing  moral 
truth  is  practical.  A  morality  which  does  not  bear 
upon  life,  however  ideal  it  might  seem,  would  not 
be  true.  For  example,  a  strained  and  exaggerated 
religiosity  finds  in  celibacy  the  supreme  virtue.  On 
this  theory  a  virtuous  world  would  be  one  which 
would  in  a  generation  cease  to  be.  No  abstract 
doctrine,  therefore,  could  establish  the  moral  value 
of  universal  virginity.  The  cloistral  purity  which  is 
held  up  to  the  imagination  in  convents  is  immoral. 
Kant’s  precept,  “So  act  that  the  law  of  your  conduct 
might  become  law  universal,”  shows  immediately 
that  there  is  something  wrong.  If  all  the  world 
retreated  to  convents,  it  would  commit  euthanasia. 
However  pleasing  that  might  be  to  the  pessimist, 
it  would  not  be  morally  good.  Nothing  can  better 
illustrate  the  absurdity  of  an  absolute  morality.  It  is 
not  possible  to  say  that  anything  is  good  or  bad  in 
itself.  Everything  is  good  or  bad  relatively  to  the 
agent,  the  time,  the  circumstances. 

The  old  Utilitarianism  of  Bentham,  turning  on 
the  principle  that  good  conduct  is  that  which  produces 


PHILOSOPHY 


167 


the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  was 
subjected  to  a  merciless  criticism.  John  Stuart 
Mill  attempted  to  close  the  breaches  in  the  armour. 
Clearly  there  was  some  defect,  for  there  is  no  “  calcu¬ 
lus  of  pleasures,”  and  therefore  it  is  impossible  to  know 
what  is  the  “ greatest  happiness”  of  any  one.  Noth¬ 
ing  is  more  uncertain  or  fluctuating  than  the  idea  of 
happiness.  Aristotle  gave  the  best  definition  which 
could  be  given,  “the  activity  of  the  soul  according  to 
virtue  in  a  perfect  life,”  but  every  one  must  feel  the 
vagueness  and  indeterminateness  of  the  definition. 
We  have  to  settle  what  is  virtue,  and  what  is  a  perfect 
life,  and  we  must  bring  the  two  together  and  plant 
the  individual  soul  in  the  environment  so  conceived. 
As  a  guide  to  conduct  the  idea  of  happiness  is  too 
indefinite  to  be  effectual, too  impalpable  to  be  grasped, 
too  shifting  to  be  calculated.  Furthermore,  the  Ben¬ 
thamite  formula  makes  one  uncomfortable  about 
the  minority.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number  might  be  purchased 
by  the  greatest  misery  of  the  rest.  We  are  by  no 
means  sure  that  this  is  not  what  has  happened  in 
our  community,  living  unconsciously  according  to  the 
utilitarian  dogma.  A  country  which  is  the  paradise 
of  the  rich  and  the  purgatory  of  the  poor  exactly 
fulfils  this  ideal,  when  the  rich  or  the  comfortable 
are  the  majority,  and  those  living  on  the  border-line 
of  starvation  are  only  a  third  of  the  whole.  Our 
present  system  in  England  may  plausibly  be  claimed 
as  the  apotheosis  of  Benthamism,  and  yet  we  are  not 
happy ! 


i68 


GREAT  ISSUES 


But  while  our  British  utilitarianism  has  been 
riddled  by  criticism  and  seems  to  be  disappointing 
in  practice,  it  has  far  too  much  truth  and  value  in  it 
to  let  it  go.  It  requires  amendment.  If  instead  of 
happiness  we  read  “good,”  and  if  for  “the  greatest 
number”  we  read  “the  whole,”  and  interpret  utility 
in  the  light  of  these  changes,  we  approach  the  prag¬ 
matic  interpretation  of  morality.  Whatever  is  and 
proves  to  be  good  for  the  whole  of  humanity  is  mor¬ 
ally  right.  And  there  is  no  other  possible  meaning 
of  right  and  wrong. 

Clearly  we  must  distinguish  between  the  moral 
sense  which  discerns  the  difference  between  good  and 
evil,  and  makes  the  good  obligatory  —  Kant’s  cate¬ 
gorical  imperative  —  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  de¬ 
termination  of  what  is  good  and  evil  on  the  other. 
For  the  moral  sense,  the  categorical  imperative,  an 
absoluteness  may  and  must  be  claimed.  Kant’s 
awe  in  contemplating  the  moral  law  within,  parallel 
to  his  awe  in  contemplating  the  starry  heavens  above, 
is  the  eternally  right  emotion  for  the  human  soul. 
As  the  galaxy  strikes  the  childish  imagination  with 
delight  and  grows  in  wonder  and  beauty  with  every 
fresh  exploration  into  the  depths  of  space,  and  with 
every  new  analysis  of  the  composition  and  movement 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  so  this  mysterious  and  au¬ 
thoritative  “ought”  in  the  human  breast  startles  our 
childhood  with  the  sense  of  the  unseen  eye,  and 
amazes  our  maturity  with  the  conviction  of  the  moral 
government  of  the  universe.  When  the  stellar  sys- 


PHILOSOPHY 


169 


terns  are  mapped,  and  analyzed,  and  weighed,  they 
do  not  lose  their  majesty.  Neither  does  the  voice  of 
conscience  lose  its  authority  by  any  attempt  to  ex¬ 
plain  it;  if  it  is  the  product  of  our  social  life,  the 
gathering  sovereignty  of  the  social  consciousness, 
the  instinctive  recognition  that  what  makes  for  the 
good  of  the  whole  must  be  binding  on  each,  this 
suggested  origin  does  not  weaken  the  mysterious 
power  of  its  inner  voice.  Explain  it  as  we  may,  or 
leave  it  unexplained  as  we  commonly  do,  it  is  a  con¬ 
stant  factor  of  human  life,  a  distinguishing  charac¬ 
teristic  of  man,  of  which  only  the  most  rudimentary 
forms  are  traceable  in  the  other  animals.  Men 
know  the  meaning  of  “ought,”  nor  do  they  need  a 
further  explanation.  When  they  disobey  they  know 
it  is  disobedience,  and  cannot  justify  it.  Remorse 
fails  not,  if  repentance  lags.  The  hidden  scourge 
is  wielded,  though  justice  sleeps.  No  change  of 
opinion  alters  the  fact  of  conscience.  In  Juvenal, 
in  Shakespeare,  in  Plato,  in  Butler,  in  the  moralist 
who  seeks  to  explain  it,  or  in  the  materialist  who 
seeks  to  explain  it  away,  it  asserts  its  mild,  insistent, 
terrifying  reality.  “Had  it  strength  as  it  has  right, 
had  it  power  as  it  has  manifest  authority,  it  would 
absolutely  govern  the  world.” 

But  while  the  judge  is  always  the  same,  the  nature 
of  the  decision,  and  the  estimate  of  the  facts  which 
are  brought  before  the  tribunal,  must  change,  and 
advance.  Moral  ideas  grow,  and  the  standard  rises. 
Actions  which  passed  once  unquestioned  by  con- 


170 


GREAT  ISSUES 


science  become  questionable,  and  are  finally  con¬ 
demned.  Actions  which  to-day  are  passed  as  jus¬ 
tifiable  will  in  a  better  age  be  condemned.  Possibly 
there  are  secret  and  suppressed  protests  of  conscience 
in  many  acts  excused  and  even  admired,  which  a 
fuller  knowledge  of  ourselves  and  others  would  dis¬ 
cover.  For  instance,  George  Grenfell  found  among 
the  Bengola  of  the  Congo  the  most  revolting  canni¬ 
balism.  Not  only  were  slaughtered  enemies  eaten, 
but  human  butchers  kidnapped,  bought,  or  other¬ 
wise  obtained  human  flesh,  which  they  fattened  for 
the  human  market.  A  morbid  passion  for  this  food 
was  common;  a  chief  would  kill  and  eat  his  wives, 
and  ask  the  relatives  of  each  slaughtered  woman  to 
the  banquet;  many  would  dig  up  corpses  in  an 
advanced  stage  of  decomposition  for  food  —  the 
origin,  it  is  thought,  of  the  early  Arab  stories  of 
ghouls  ! 1  These  customs  existed  unquestioned  and 
uncondemned.  But  Grenfell  found,  on  closer  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  tribe,  that  all  were  perfectly 
conscious  of  the  evil.  They  knew  the  taste  was 
depraved,  as  the  drunkard  condemns  drunkenness. 
At  the  touch  of  the  Gospel  the  Bengole  become  the 
most  devoted  and  loyal  of  Christians.  They  break 
with  their  old  life;  it  passes  as  a  horrible  dream. 

It  may  well  be  therefore  that  in  much  which 
custom  allows  and  the  world  practises  a  secret  and 
silent  protest  goes  on  in  the  human  mind.  It  is 

1  See  Sir  Harry  Johnston’s  “Life  of  George  Grenfell,”  for 
the  revolting  details. 


PHILOSOPHY 


171 

with  hesitation  that  we  admit  that  what  seems  evil 
now  ever  seemed  good  to  men,  or  that  what  is  evil 
now  can  really  seem  good  to  us,  so  instinctively  does 
the  moral  sense  strain  towards  the  idea  of  an  absolute 
morality.  But  a  development  has  been,  and  is, 
always  going  on.  The  old  order  changes.  The  old 
customs  are  condemned.  Things  which  were  en¬ 
dured  as  inevitable  become  intolerable.  Moral 
ideas  come  into  being,  they  grow  and  become  dis¬ 
tinct.  The  judgment  of  Conscience  applies  to  new 
situations,  passes  verdicts  on  things  which  it  had 
seemed  formerly  to  ignore.  This  change  or  advance 
in  the  material  of  moral  judgments  is  pragmatically 
explained.  What  once  passed  as  right  comes  to  be 
regarded  as  wrong,  because  in  the  long  run  it  does 
not  work,  it  does  not  promote  the  good  of  the 
whole.  What  was  beneficial  to  the  few,  to  the 
fortunate,  to  the  strong,  becomes  suspect,  because 
it  is  injurious  to  the  rest,  and  the  few  are  found  to 
be  more  injured  by  the  injury  of  the  rest  than  they 
are  benefited  by  the  coveted  advantages. 

Slavery  was  to  the  Greek  mind  a  law  of  nature. 
Aristotle  had  persuaded  himself  that  some  men  were 
“naturally”  slaves.  His  conscience  did  not  prick 
him  when  he  defined  tools  as  “lifeless  slaves”  and 
slaves  as  “living  tools.”  The  Jewish  Law  allowed 
slavery,  though  it  forbade  the  permanent  enslave¬ 
ment  of  a  native  Israelite.  Christianity  did  not 
abolish  slavery;  it  only  claimed  the  equality  of 
slave  and  master  before  God.  The  time  was  not 


172 


GREAT  ISSUES 


ripe.  Our  great  seamen,  like  Hawkins,  carried 
slaves  to  America  in  ships  which  were  named  after 
Jesus.  Nay  even  in  1712,  by  the  Assiento  Con¬ 
tract  in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  England  secured 
the  slave  trade  of  the  world.  The  Treaty  was 
celebrated  by  Te  Dennis  for  which  Handel  wrote 
the  music. 

Our  cousins  in  America  up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil 
War  practised  slavery  with  an  easy  conscience. 
Preachers  like  Henry  Ward  Beecher  or  Phillips 
Brooks  wxre  denounced  by  Christian  Churches  for 
advocating  abolition.  What  has  happened,  that  all 
at  once  within  the  last  fifty  years  slavery  has  become 
“  wrong, ”  and  the  conscience  of  humanity  protests 
against  it?  It  is  not  the  work  of  religion,  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  it  is  not  the  result  of  a  fresh  revelation.  It 
is  only  that  with  the  growth  of  knowledge,  with  the 
advance  of  economics  and  the  fuller  study  of  anthro¬ 
pology,  it  has  become  overwhelmingly  clear  that  the 
system  of  slavery  does  not  work.  The  apparent 
economic  gain  to  a  few  is  balanced  by  the  most 
appalling  results  to  the  rest,  and  ultimately  to  the 
few  themselves.  That  fact  the  genius  of  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  flashed  upon  the  intelligence  of 
America,  as  it  had  been  proved  to  England  a  gener¬ 
ation,  earlier  by  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson  and 
Granville  Sharp.  Slave  labour  is  wasteful.  A  slave 
population  is  demoralizing  even  to  the  masters.  A 
genuine  democracy  cannot  be  maintained  on  slave 
labour,  because  the  rights  of  man  become  invalid  in 


PHILOSOPHY 


173 


sight  of  men  who  have  no  rights,  and  to  treat  the 
labourer  as  a  chattel  is  to  make  labour  degrading. 
Conscience  has  at  last  condemned  slavery,  on  the 
same  principle  that  it  originally  condemned  murder ; 
it  is  against  the  good  of  the  whole. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  in  the  youth  of  men  still 
living  the  duel  was  the  recognized  and  legitimate 
way  of  settling  affairs  of  honour.  When  a  man 
killed  his  fellow  in  a  duel  he  did  not  think  that  he  had 
violated  the  commandment,  “Thou  shalt  not  kill.” 
Wounds  and  scars  received  in  duels  were  distinctions 
and  the  guarantees  of  honour.  A  woman  loved  her 
lover  the  better  because  he  had  killed  his  man.  All 
this  is,  as  it  were,  but  yesterday.  Presumably  in  the 
weakness  of  law  and  in  the  excitability  of  unrestrained 
temper,  it  was  held  to  be  beneficial  to  society  to  leave 
the  honour  of  each  man  in  his  own  hands,  and  to 
vindicate  it  by  mortal  combat.  The  practice  died 
out  in  England,  and  is  dying  out  in  civilized  society, 
not  because  a  gentle  woman  as  Queen  of  England 
discountenanced  it,  but  because,  as  the  scenes  in  a 
hundred  novels  remind  us,  it  served  no  real  utility. 
What  advantage  was  it  for  a  man  whose  honour  was 
wounded  that  a  rapier  should  be  thrust  through  his 
body  as  well  ?  The  peppery  sensitiveness  which  the 
custom  encouraged  was  injurious  to  social  inter¬ 
course.  The  country  and  the  services  were  deprived 
of  valuable  men,  killed  not  by  an  enemy  or  by  disease, 
but  by  the  bullet  of  an  acquaintance  or  even  of  a 
friend,  who  in  a  moment  of  irritation  had  dropped  an 


174 


GREAT  ISSUES 


insulting  word.  To-day  probably  the  ordinary 
conscience  would  condemn  a  murder  of  this  sort  as 
severely  as  one  of  the  common  sort.  Where  the  law 
is  open,  and  civilization  is  established,  the  duel  is  an 
anachronism  and  an  immorality. 

But  we  may  surmise  that  the  duellum  between 
nations,  which  is  called  war,  is  in  the  way  of  passing 
under  the  same  stricture  of  conscience  which  has 
condemned  the  duel.  The  enormous  cost  of  war 
establishments,  the  drain  on  national  resources  to 
train  vast  armies  for  improbable  contingencies,  the 
possibility  of  building  huge  navies  in  problematic 
competition  with  other  countries,  though  a  scientific 
invention  may  render  the  fleets  nugatory,  and  give 
the  victory  to  the  weaker  power,  the  waste  of  brain 
and  manhood  on  the  art  of  destruction,  when  what  the 
world  wants  is  a  richer  and  fuller  constructive  life, 
begin  to  strike  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  in  a  new 
way.  What  benefit  does  a  successful  war  secure, 
which  compensates  the  general  and  disastrous  loss 
of  keeping  prepared  for  war  ?  And  further,  the  same 
doubt  begins  to  invade  the  conscience  of  humanity 
about  killing  in  war  as  rendered  the  killing  in  a  duel 
impermissible.  More  than  once  in  the  Boer  War 
the  enemies  found  themselves  unexpectedly  face  to 
face  on  a  kopje,  and,  looking  into  each  other’s  eyes, 
they  could  not  fire,  but  parted  as  friends. 

We  may  be  approaching  the  time  when,  from  two 
sides,  the  conscience  of  man  will  be  compelled  to 
pronounce  war  immoral.  Pragmatically  viewed,  it 


PHILOSOPHY 


175 


ceases  to  serve  its  purpose,  or  any  purpose.  It  is 
an  incubus  on  nations,  which  have  not  yet  con¬ 
quered  Nature  sufficiently  to  have  spare  strength  to 
bear  it.  The  prodigious  drain  it  makes  on  the  masses 
is  not  compensated  by  the  rewards  and  distinctions 
which  it  brings  to  the  military  and  naval  classes. 
It  is  a  monstrous  ill-adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 
It  is  as  if  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s  dragged  out  the 
garden  roller  to  crush  a  snail.  For  example,  the 
King  of  Abyssinia  imprisoned  some  English  sub¬ 
jects.  To  liberate  them  and  to  avenge  the  outraged 
honour  of  England,  Napier  was  despatched  with  an 
expedition  to  Magdala.  The  Abyssinian  King  killed 
himself,  the  prisoners  were  liberated,  everything  was 
satisfactory,  and  the  two  countries,  the  great  British 
Empire  and  the  half-civilized,  half-Christianized 
African  kingdom  went  on  precisely  as  before.  This 
was  surely  a  success,  a  clear  argument  and  justifica¬ 
tion  for  war.  But  when  the  bill  came  in,  it  was 
found  that  to  accomplish  this  trifling  readjustment 
this  country  had  spent  nine  millions  of  money  !  The 
thing  was  too  ridiculous. 

A  war  of  that  kind  tends  to  become  an  immorality, 
because  the  misery  and  degradation  of  the  poor  at 
home,  not  to  mention  the  poverty  of  India,  cannot 
afford  such  an  expenditure  for  such  a  trivial  result. 
The  thing,  so  to  speak,  does  not  work. 

On  the  other  side,  conscience  awakes  over  the 
death  of  that  Abyssinian  King.  What  right  have 
we,  fellow-mortals  for  so  brief  a  season  on  this 


176 


GREAT  ISSUES 


travailing  earth,  to  take  each  other’s  lives  or  push 
each  other  to  death  so  lightly? 

“Our  life  is  like  a  narrow  raft 
Afloat  upon  the  hungry  sea, 

Heaven  is  but  a  little  space, 

And  each  man,  eager  for  a  place, 

Doth  thrust  his  brother  in  the  sea, 

And  so  our  life  is  salt  with  tears.” 

So  runs  an  old  MS.,  but  humanity  awakens  and 
disapproves.  Life  appears  more  sacred;  love  ap¬ 
pears  more  natural.  National  honour  wanes  in 
comparison  with  the  solidarity  of  the  human  family, 
as  personal  honour  became  subordinate  to  the  honour 
of  the  country.  The  nation’s  rights  begin  to  seem 
valid  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  consistent  with  the 
world’s  rights.  “My  country,  right  or  wrong” 
already  begins  to  sound  as  immoral  as  Catherine  of 
Siena’s  counsel  to  obey  the  Pope,  however  bad  and 
wrong  he  might  be. 

Thus  Conscience,  ever  the  same,  advances  in  its 
judgments  on  conduct.  Morality  progresses  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  intelligible  principle  that  only  that 
which  serves  the  good  of  all  is  morally  right,  and  in 
the  progress  and  shifting  of  things  that  becomes 
immoral  which  no  longer  serves  the  general  good. 

The  need  of  a  philosophy  of  religion  is  felt  when 
men  begin  to  think.  A  book  on  the  Philosophy  of 
Religion  like  Professor  Caird’s,  or  one  on  the  Phi¬ 
losophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,  like  Dr.  Fairbairn’s, 
is  the  most  powerful  confirmation  of  faith  where  it 


PHILOSOPHY 


177 


exists  and  the  most  urgent  inducement  to  seek  it 
where  it  does  not.  Religion  without  philosophy 
easily  slides  into  mere  emotionalism  or  lifeless  dogma. 
Unfortunately,  however,  philosophical  systems  are 
apt  to  take  the  place  of  religion,  or  to  crush  religion 
into  conformity  with  the  a  priori  demands  of  the 
philosophy.  Hegelianism  with  its  insistence  on  the 
reality  and  the  sole  reality  of  thought,  seems  at  first 
to  offer  a  favourable  defence  of  religion.  But  the 
more  one  studies  its  effects,  the  more  one  questions 
whether  religion  gains  much  from  it.  The  dialectic 
movement  from  thesis  and  antithesis  to  a  fuller 
synthesis  is  too  abstract.  It  does  not  so  much  ex¬ 
plain  phenomena  as  take  their  place.  Religious 
phenomena,  like  the  rest,  melt  away  in  the  void  of 
the  great  and  universal  abstraction.  Instead  of 
living  souls  entering  into  and  experiencing  a  religious 
life,  we  have  thought,  abstracted  from  the  individual, 
performing  its  endless  and  apparently  purposeless 
gymnastic  feat.  Insensibly  we  are  carried  away 
from  the  region  of  religious  life  into  a  kind  of  easy 
mental  formula,  which  derives  its  certainty  from  its 
disconnection  with  all  concrete  facts. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Hegelianism  is  not  a  nar¬ 
cotic  rather  than  a  stimulus  to  religion.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  competing  system  of  Monism,  as 
explained  by  Haeckel,  rules  religion  out  of  court 
altogether.  “  Atheism  affirms  that  there  are  no  gods 
or  goddesses,  assuming  that  God  means  a  personal, 
extra-mundane  entity.  This  godless  world  system 

N 


1 78 


GREAT  ISSUES 


substantially  agrees  with  the  monism  or  pantheism 
of  the  modern  scientist ;  it  is  only  another  expression 
for  it,  emphasizing  its  negative  aspect,  the  non¬ 
existence  of  any  supernatural  deity.  In  this  sense 
Schopenhauer  justly  remarks:  Pantheism  is  only  a 
polite  form  of  atheism.  The  truth  of  pantheism  lies 
in  its  destruction  of  the  dualist  antithesis  of  God  and 
the  world,  in  its  recognition  that  the  world  exists  in 
virtue  of  its  own  inherent  forces.  The  maxim  of 
the  pantheist,  ‘  God  and  the  world  are  one,’  is  merely 
a  polite  way  of  giving  the  Lord  God  His  conge.”  1 

The  dread  of  philosophy  among  the  simply  pious 
is  not  therefore  without  some  reason.  The  sensa¬ 
tional  philosophy  of  Mill,  the  synthetic  philosophy 
of  Spencer,  the  neo-Hegelian  philosophy  which  ob¬ 
tained  a  power  in  Oxford  through  the  personality  of 
Professor  J.  H.  Green,  and  the  monistic  philosophy 
of  Haeckel  —  that  is  to  say,  all  the  philosophical 
systems  which  have  made  a  distinct  bid  for  universal 
recognition  during  the  last  half-century  —  have 
either  been  directly  opposed  to  religion  or  have  offered 
a  support  which  proves  on  closer  investigation  to  be 
fallacious.  They  are  pantheistic  or  atheistic,  and 
the  two  are,  as  Schopenhauer  says,  in  practice  the 
same. 

But  what  is  the  religious  effect  of  pragmatism? 
Or  rather,  what  religious  philosophy  emerges  from 
the  acceptance  of  the  pragmatic  principle?  First 
of  all,  it  offers  a  defence  for  religion  as  such;  its 

1  “The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,”  p.  298. 


PHILOSOPHY 


179 


examination  of  the  human  mind  results  in  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  religious  instincts,  the  tendency  to 
religious  belief  and  practice,  as  a  constant  element  in 
man.  The  proposal  to  ignore  or  to  dispense  with 
religion  is  recognized  as  impracticable.  Religion 
emerges  in  man  qud  man.  If  it  could  be  eliminated, 
and  finally  disposed  of,  that  result  would  have  been 
achieved  long  ago.  The  evils  of  religion  have  been 
admitted  before  Haeckel.  The  bitter  cry  of  Lucre¬ 
tius  has  rung  down  the  history  of  Europe: 

“Tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum.” 

But,  recognizing  religion  there  as  a  stubborn  fact, 
the  pragmatist  is  able  to  recognize  also  the  practical 
good  that  it  does.  It  is  by  its  good,  not  by  its  evil, 
that  it  lives.  The  genius  of  this  philosophy  is  to 
go  straight  to  things  as  they  are  and  to  view  them  in 
their  relation  with  the  lives  of  men.  In  this  spirit 
Professor  James,  the  mouthpiece  of  pragmatism, 
says:  “The  sovereign  cure  for  worry  is  religious 
faith.  The  turbulent  billows  of  the  fretful  surface 
leave  the  deep  parts  of  the  ocean  undisturbed,  and 
to  him  who  has  a  hold  of  vaster  and  more  permanent 
realities  the  hourly  vicissitudes  of  his  personal  des¬ 
tiny  seem  relatively  insignificant  things.”  1  Faith 
is  a  physiological  advantage.  Faith  in  a  living  and 
loving  God  is  an  advantage  for  the  body  and  the  mind 
alike. 

1  “Religion  and  Medicine,”  by  Samuel  McComb  and  others, 
p.  280. 


i8o 


GREAT  ISSUES 


The  pragmatist  has  a  perfectly  open  mind  to 
religion.  “If  theological  ideas,”  says  the  same 
authority,  “prove  to  have  a  value  for  concrete  life, 
they  will  be  true,  for  pragmatism,  in  the  sense  of 
being  good  for  so  much.  For  how  much  more  they 
are  true  will  depend  entirely  on  their  relations  to  the 
other  truths  that  also  have  to  be  acknowledged.”  1 
That  is  to  say,  religious  truth,  like  metaphysical 
truth,  like  moral  truth,  is  tested  only  by  the  question 
how  it  works.  Apart  from  that,  truth  has  no  mean¬ 
ing  which  is  of  any  value  to  us.  Our  sole  interest 
in  knowing  it  is  that  it  bears  upon  our  lives.  If 
religion,  therefore,  bears  favourably  on  our  lives, 
it  is  true.  If  it  does  not,  it  is  false.  The  difference 
between  a  true  and  a  false  religion  is  not  that  the  one 
has  an  a  priori  demonstration,  an  abstract  and  de¬ 
tached  authority  which  the  other  has  not ;  it  is  purely 
practical.  The  one  makes  men  better,  builds  up  and 
develops  nations,  produces  nobler  life,  presents  more 
effective  ideals,  is  the  final  cause  of  progress;  the 
other,  the  false  religion,  degrades  and  hinders  the 
life  of  men,  leads  to  the  stagnation  and  decay  of 
nations,  produces  lazy,  useless,  parasitical  lives,  and 
presents  ideals  which  lead  to  corruption,  to  super¬ 
stition,  to  fear  and  weakness,  and  paralysis. 

On  the  pragmatic  principle  the  proofs  of  religion 
are  within  the  reach  of  every  one.  “By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them”  is  the  master  key  to  the  situa¬ 
tion.  Evidently  there  are  degrees  of  truth  in  most 


1  “Pragmatism,”  p.  73. 


PHILOSOPHY 


181 


religions.  The  religion  that  is  wholly  corrupt  and 
debasing  is  not  proved  to  exist  among  men.  It 
would  be  impossible.  Hinduism,  for  example,  though 
the  caste  and  the  family  system  has  its  fatal  faults, 
and  the  actual  worship  is  defiled  with  licentiousness, 
though  woman  is  degraded,  and  millions  of  guiltless 
widows  are  condemned  to  suffer  for  the  supposed 
crime  of  the  death  of  their  husbands,  whom  in  some 
cases  they  have  never  seen,  is  by  no  means  without  its 
salutary  effects.  It  brings  religion  into  every  detail 
of  the  household  life;  it  holds  the  system  of  Indian 
society  together  in  a  framework  of  surprising  strength, 
it  opens  up  vistas  of  thought  and  contemplation,  in 
which  the  mystic  can  escape  from  the  earth  and  enter 
the  world  of  ideas.  Mohammedanism  has,  or  has  at 
least  had,  virtues  of  a  very  practical  kind.  The 
simple  Theism,  the  pure  worship,  and  the  constant 
engagement  to  prayer,  have  produced  men  irresist¬ 
ible  in  battle,  men  from  whom  that  great  solvent  of 
courage,  the  fear  of  death,  has  disappeared. 

The  religion  which  has  made  Japan,  and  suggested 
the  ideal  of  the  Samurai,  Buddhism  or  Shintoism  or 
Confucianism,  or  the  unconscious  blending  of  the 
three,  justifies  itself  in  the  virility,  the  tenacity,  the 
artistic  sensitiveness  of  that  remarkable  people. 
These  religions  hold  their  own  in  the  world  by  virtue 
of  their  practical  value.  Their  ideas  are  true,  not 
absolutely,  but  because  they  work,  or  in  so  far  as 
they  work,  for  human  betterment  and  for  national 
progress. 


182 


GREAT  ISSUES 


The  strongest  argument  against  Christianity  is 
not  theoretical,  or  historical,  but  practical.  The 
degradation  of  life  in  Russia,  the  moral,  and  even 
political,  decay  of  the  Catholic  countries  —  the 
apparent  hopelessness,  for  example,  of  Ireland,  the 
most  loyal  and  absolute  daughter  of  the  Papacy  — 
offer  an  argument  against  Christianity  which  it  is 
impossible  to  overcome.  We  may  surmise  that 
Christianity  in  this  form  of  papal  absolutism  must 
surely  decay,  because  it  no  longer  bears  the  fruit  of 
religion ;  countries  which  renounce  it  swiftly  surpass 
those  that  retain  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Christian¬ 
ity  understood  as  the  religion  of  Christ,  the  religion 
which  was  taught  in  His  precept  and  example,  the 
religion  which  grew  out  of  His  death  and  resurrection, 
justified  itself  at  the  beginning,  and  justifies  itself 
now  by  its  practical  results.  While  the  political 
system,  the  ecclesiastical  machine,  has  become  of 
doubtful  utility  to  mankind,  the  religion  itself  bears 
its  constant  and  obvious  fruits.  Bad  lives  are  made 
good,  men  become  unselfish  and  devoted  to  the  in¬ 
terests  of  others,  towns  are  purged,  nations  are  built 
up,  their  commerce  extends,  their  political  institu¬ 
tions  grow,  and  grow  better,  liberty  and  order  are 
increasingly  reconciled;  and  all  this  is  the  result  of 
taking  the  New  Testament  as  the  guide  of  personal 
and  public  life.  The  pragmatic  value  of  the  Bible 
and  of  the  Christian  teaching  in  its  purity  is  dis¬ 
tinctly  marked  in  the  lives  of  families  and  nations  as 
well  as  in  the  experience  of  individuals.  Indeed, 


PHILOSOPHY 


i83 

the  challenge  may  well  be  made,  What  produces  a 
cleaner,  wholesomer  life,  a  life  of  greater  beneficence, 
a  life  of  higher  ideals  and  more  shining  hopes,  than 
the  faith  in  Jesus  Christ?  What  model  has  super¬ 
seded  Him?  What  power  for  imitating  the  Exem¬ 
plar  has  equalled  His? 

This  is  clearly  the  safest  and  strongest  line  of  evi¬ 
dence  for  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  irrefragable. 
Christian  truth  is  established,  not  by  authority,  which 
is  itself  in  need  of  authentication,  nor  by  wavering 
lines  of  critical  or  historical  proofs,  but  by  the  fact, 
which  may  be  at  once  verified,  that  it  works,  it  pro¬ 
duces  fruit,  and  that  the  best  fruit  which  is  hitherto 
found  in  humanity. 

This  general  position  is  illustrated  by  the  aston¬ 
ishing  appearance  and  development  of  a  new  move¬ 
ment  within  the  bounds  of  Christendom  itself,  viz., 
Christian  Science.  The  criticism  that  is  directed 
against  this  system,  which  is  said  already  to  number 
a  million  members  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  is  search¬ 
ing,  and  often  effective.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted 
that  the  text-book  of  the  faith,  “  Science  and  Health,” 
should  seem  to  countenance  a  metaphysic  which  no 
pragmatist  can  allow.  The  writer  of  the  book,  who 
is  not  in  any  sense  a  philosopher  or  a  systematic 
thinker,  announces  the  paradox  that  matter  is  not 
real.  The  supremacy  of  mind,  in  her  judgment, 
involves  not  only  the  subordination,  but  the  anni¬ 
hilation,  of  matter.  She  cannot  tolerate  the  foe  for 
a  moment,  it  must  be  repudiated  and  denied  and 


184 


GREAT  ISSUES 


denounced.  There  is  but  one  real  existence,  that  is 
God,  the  holy  wisdom  and  love  that  must  express 
itself  in  a  perfect  world.  Evil,  disease,  whatever  is 
other  than  good,  is  delusion,  the  creation  of  an  ig¬ 
norant  and  perverted  mentality.  When  the  thought 
is  right,  evil  and  disease  are  not  there ;  God  is  all  in 
all,  and  God  is  perfect.  To  make  quite  sure  of  the 
supremacy  of  spirit,  matter  along  with  evil,  physical 
or  spiritual,  is  treated,  by  a  high  a  priori  method,  as 
unreal.  But  this  denial  of  the  reality  of  matter  is, 
as  we  saw  a  few  pages  back,  untenable.  Reality  is 
not  a  quality  which  we  can  say  exists  out  of  relation 
to  our  cognition,  our  perceptions  and  concepts;  it 
is  for  us  made  by  the  process  of  our  experience. 
That  is  real  which  for  us  works.  As  against  the 
idealist,  and  equally  as  against  Christian  Science,  we 
are  bound  to  assert  that  the  world  of  matter  given 
in  our  experience  is  precisely  as  real  as  that  experi¬ 
ence  which  gives  it  to  us.  Nothing  is  gained  by 
disintegrating  the  whole,  which  is  made  up  of  the 
subjective  and  the  objective,  to  the  discredit  of  either. 
Experience  is  a  totality  which  at  each  point  and  in 
every  detail  necessarily  contains  the  two  elements. 
There  is  always  the  ego  that  experiences,  and  there 
is  always  the  world,  which  relatively  to  it  is  external, 
that  is  experienced.  The  only  unreal  is  the  phe¬ 
nomenon  which  results  from  this  unnatural  dissolu¬ 
tion.  If  the  subject,  by  dreaming,  or  by  disease,  or 
by  perversity  and  false  philosophy,  dissociates  itself 
from  the  object,  and  constructs  airy  nothings  out  of 


PHILOSOPHY 


185 

itself,  the  product  is  unreal;  the  definition  of  un¬ 
reality  is,  that  in  the  subject  which  has  no  correspon¬ 
dent  in  the  object.  Reality  is  the  consistent  union 
of  the  two  in  the  experience  of  a  personality ;  reality 
is  demonstrated  by  the  concurrence  of  many  person¬ 
alities  in  the  same  experience. 

Thus  matter  is  as  real  as  spirit.  We  cannot  say 
that  the  one  is  more  real  than  the  other.  Reality 
is  only  the  result  of  their  combination.  The  assump¬ 
tion  of  a  reality  which  is  thus  given  and  maintained 
is  justified.  It  works.  The  truth  of  experience, 
philosophically  considered,  is  this  demonstrated 
workableness.  It  is  therefore  a  misfortune  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  should  have  cumbered  her  religious  prin¬ 
ciple  with  a  metaphysic  which  is  indemonstrable, 
unconvincing,  and  purely  dogmatic. 

But  there  is  a  truth  in  Christian  Science  which 
establishes  itself  pragmatically.  Its  evidence  is  in 
the  way  it  works.  As  a  doctrine,  a  dogma,  an  asser¬ 
tion  of  religious  truth,  it  produces  health  of  body, 
tranquillity,  and  cheerfulness  of  mind,  love  to  men, 
and  the  anxiety  to  help  them.  The  results  repro¬ 
duce  the  effect  of  Christianity  in  the  earliest  times. 
The  Church,  at  the  beginning,  was  a  healer.  It 
would  seem  that  the  first  Christian  ministers  under¬ 
took  the  healing  of  disease  as  part  of  their  Divine 
equipment.  A  peace  which  passed  all  understanding 
possessed  those  primitive  assemblies,  and  a  joy  un¬ 
speakable  gave  meaning  and  hope  to  life.  This 
verification  of  Christianity  in  its  inception  is  not 


GREAT  ISSUES 


1 86 

wanting  to  its  latest  and  most  astonishing  develop¬ 
ment.  The  pragmatist,  therefore,  is  profoundly 
interested  to  estimate  its  truth.  His  philosophy 
obliges  him  to  recognize  truth  in  it,  and  his  philo¬ 
sophical  duty  is  to  guard  against  the  error  which 
easily  invades  a  movement  of  the  kind.  Christian 
Science  is  a  curious  name  to  give  to  a  movement 
which  denies  the  reality  of  matter,  and  renders  the 
researches  of  science,  as  commonly  understood, 
nugatory.  But  the  name  Christian  Philosophy 
would  not  be  inappropriate.  And,  working  along 
the  lines  which  Professor  James  has  laid  down,  the 
pragmatist  might  build  and  secure  a  very  genuine 
philosophy  which  is  essentially  Christian  —  indeed, 
the  very  wisdom  which  the  first  Christians  set  over 
against  the  wisdom  of  the  world  and  the  reasonings 
of  the  schools.  Entering  into  human  life  at  every 
point,  and  influencing  it  in  a  thousand  beneficent 
ways,  this  philosophy  of  God  and  man,  of  body  and 
spirit,  of  life  and  death,  might  rapidly  transform  the 
human  race.  It  would  be  Christianity  universalized, 
denationalized,  in  order  to  be  humanized,  demon¬ 
strated  in  experience  as  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

This  whole  wisdom  was  in  Christ,  and,  indeed, 
was  Christ.  Nay,  before  the  historic  coming  of 
Christ,  this  reason,  or  Logos,  was  the  creative  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  world.  God  is  omnipresent,  absolute 
love,  holiness,  power,  supreme  over  matter  and  spirit 
alike.  Fully  realized  and  operative,  as  He  was  in 
Jesus,  He  showed  Himself  seeking  and  saving  the 


PHILOSOPHY 


187 


world,  removing  its  ignorance  and  folly  and  sin. 
Whoever  enters  into  the  mind  of  Jesus,  and  realizes 
His  work  in  the  world,  becomes  in  his  degree  partaker 
of  the  Divine  nature.  In  Him  the  Infinite  Spirit 
operates  and  realizes  Himself.  Forthwith  comes  the 
same  healing,  cleansing,  re-creation,  which  followed 
on  the  activities  of  Jesus  among  men.  Conscious  of 
the  Divine  indwelling,  the  weak  is  made  strong,  and 
is  able  to  accomplish  the  things  which  appeared  to 
be  impossible.  This  Christian  philosophy  is  verified 
by  its  practical  working,  and  is  thus,  in  the  surest 
sense,  true. 


CHAPTER  VII 


SCIENCE 

It  is  evident  to  every  observer  that  the  old  enemies, 
science  and  religion,  are  coming  to  terms.  At  first 
they  agreed  to  a  delimitation  of  frontier,  and  entered 
into  an  engagement  not  to  invade  each  other’s  do¬ 
main.  That  delimitation  has  not  lost  its  value,  but 
the  relations  of  the  high  contracting  parties  have 
become  more  friendly.  The  two  confess  a  mutual 
need,  and  neither  wishes  to  remain  rigorously  marked 
off  from  the  other.  On  the  one  hand,  religion  is 
borrowing  more  and  more  daily  the  methods  of  sci¬ 
ence.  On  the  other  hand,  science  is  interpreting  the 
nature  and  necessity  of  religion. 

It  is  slowly  dawning  on  the  intelligence  of  our 
time  that  the  antagonism  never  was  between  science 
and  religion,  but  only  between  science  and  dogma. 
When  the  Church  took  the  place  of  the  Empire,  and 
constituted  herself  the  mouthpiece  of  God  on  the 
earth,  she  took  over  the  assumptions  and  claims  of 
the  Emperor.  To  question  her  authority,  and  not 
to  bow  down  to  her  decisions,  was  lasa  majestas,  a 
kind  of  high  treason.  She  not  only  claimed  a  uni¬ 
versal  knowledge,  but  reserved  the  right  to  torture 

1 88 


SCIENCE 


189 


and  kill  those  who  would  not  accept  the  knowledge 
she  offered  them.  It  was  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Catholic  Church  when  Cosmas  Indicopleustes  de¬ 
clared  that  it  was  heresy  to  maintain  the  possibility 
of  sailing  round  the  world;  not  a  physical  or  geo¬ 
graphical  impossibility,  observe,  but  a  heresy,  a  sin 
which,  according  to  the  mediaeval  view,  was  punish¬ 
able  with  death. 

The  most  humiliating  scene  that  ever  occurred  in 
Italy  —  humiliating,  not  for  science,  but  for  the 
Church  —  was  when  Galileo  was  compelled  by 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  declare  that  the  earth  does 
not  move  round  the  sun,  and  left  the  august  presence 
murmuring,  “E  pur  si  muove.”  Science  rightly  re¬ 
sents  this  interference  with  the  sacred  pursuit  of 
truth,  this  blatant  and  insolent  infallibility  of  igno¬ 
rance  claiming  to  control  the  sunlit  realm  of  know¬ 
ledge.  Just  so  far  as  mediasval  ecclesiasticism  sur¬ 
vives,  science  is  in  antagonism  with  it,  and  must 
continue  the  war  to  the  death.  Science  is  the  cham¬ 
pion  of  the  human  spirit  against  the  tyranny  of 
superstition,  of  obscurantism,  of  degrading  ecclesi¬ 
astical  ambition. 

But,  in  enlightened  countries  to-day,  it  is  well 
understood  that  ecclesiasticism  and  religion  are  not 
only  not  the  same,  but  necessarily  antagonistic. 
Ecclesiasticism  is  not  more  the  enemy  of  science 
than  of  religion.  Religion  and  science  have  drawn 
together  in  the  recognition  of  a  common  foe. 

Thus  Professor  Duncan,  closing  his  review  of  the 


190 


GREAT  ISSUES 


New  Knowledge,  by  which  he  means  the  new  theory 
of  matter,  which  results  from  our  latest  discoveries 
in  physics  and  chemistry,  uses  language  which 
would  have  smacked  of  superstition  to  Tyndall.  It 
is  the  language,  not  of  religion,  but  of  science,  and 
yet  it  is  profoundly  religious: 

“Now  that  we  know,  or  think  we  know,  of  this 
infinite  treasure-house  of  inter-elemental  energy, 
lying  latent  for  the  hand  of  future  man  to  use,  it  is 
neither  difficult  nor  fanatical  to  believe  that  beings 
who  are  now  latent  in  our  thoughts  and  hidden  in 
our  loins  shall  stand  upon  this  earth  as  one  stands 
upon  a  footstool  and  shall  laugh  and  reach  out  their 
hands  amidst  the  stars. 

“Meanwhile  we  feel  that  we  know  this:  In  the 
beginning  God  created,  and  in  the  midst  of  His 
creation  He  set  down  man  with  a  little  spark  of  the 
Godhead  in  him  to  make  him  strive  to  know,  and 
in  the  striving  to  grow,  and  to  progress  to  some  great 
worthy  unknown  end  in  this  world.  He  gave  him 
hands  to  do,  a  will  to  drive,  and  even  senses  to  ap¬ 
prehend,  just  a  working  equipment;  and  so  he  has 
won  his  way  so  far  out  of  the  horrible  conditions  of 
pre-history.”  1 

This  is  more  like  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  than 
Haeckel’s  “Riddle  of  the  Universe.”  But  it  is  the 
new  spirit  coming  with  new  knowledge.  Haeckel 
belongs  to  a  past  which  has  already  fallen  very  far 

0 

1  “The  New  Knowledge,”  by  Robert  Kennedy  Duncan, 
p.  257.  Hodder  &  Stoughton. 


SCIENCE 


IQI 

behind  in  the  swift  onrush  of  our  knowledge.  His 
facts  are  a  lasting  possession,  his  theories  of  the 
universe  a  childish  incompetence  which  his  ad¬ 
mirers  will  strive  to  veil  from  view  and  to  blot  from 
remembrance. 

Indeed,  the  opening  chapter  of  Genesis  is  gain¬ 
ing  recognition  as  so  surprising  an  epitome  of  the 
Creation  story,  which  modern  geology  has  read  in 
the  rocks,  that  there  seems  no  possibility  of  explain¬ 
ing  it  from  any  knowledge  which  existed  at  the  time 
that  it  was  written.  It  is  the  common  Semitic  ver¬ 
sion  of  Creation  which  is  found  in  the  clay  tablets  of 
Babylonia;  but  it  is  that  account  —  making  allow¬ 
ance  for  certain  symbolical  language,  e.g.,  the  use  of 
“day,”  or  “evening  and  morning,”  to  describe  vast 
periods  of  time,  which  had  to  be  reckoned  before  the 
sun  marked  the  day  of  human  experience  —  brought 
into  an  amazing  conformity  with  the  discoveries  of 
science.  How  was  that  epitome  written,  centuries 
before  Science  had  read  the  rocks,  and,  by  labori¬ 
ous  and  patient  studies,  determined  the  process  and 
order  of  creation?  Science  goes  near  to  proving 
that  the  account  of  creation  in  Genesis  i.-ii.  3  must 
have  been  a  revelation,  communicated  supernaturally 
to  an  inspired  prophet.1 

Religion  is  not  now  inclined  to  vex  science,  nor 
science  to  envy  religion.  There  is  a  mutual  good¬ 
will,  a  desire  to  understand  each  other,  which  can 

1  See  a  most  remarkable  little  work  “  God’s  Week  of  Creation 
Work,”  by  F.  W.  H.  Nisbet  &  Co.  Price  2s.  6d. 


192 


GREAT  ISSUES 


only  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  fairest  signs  of  prog¬ 
ress  in  our  times. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  feature  of  science  in 
these  times  is  its  voluntary  recognition  of  its  own 
limitations.  After  a  period  of  delirious  intoxication, 
it  is  returning  to  the  sobriety  of  its  youth.  In  Eng¬ 
land  Bacon  is  the  father  of  science  and  the  scientific 
method;  he  recognized  the  limitations  from  the 
first,  and  offered  an  admirable  example  of  the 
mingled  enthusiasm  and  modesty  of  the  genuine 
explorer  of  Nature.  In  the  Preface  of  the  “In- 
stauratio  Magna,”  he  says,  using  that  splendour  of 
imagery  which  suggests  that  he  might  have  written 
Shakespeare’s  plays  if  he  had  given  his  mind  to 
poetry  instead  of  science:  “ Laying  aside  that 
poison  of  science,  infused  by  the  Serpent,  with 
which  the  human  mind  is  inflated  and  swells,  let  us 
not  be  loftily  wise  nor  beyond  sobriety,  but  let  us 
cultivate  truth  in  love.  For,  as  Philo  Judasus  says, 
the  senses,  like  the  sun,  reveal  the  face  of  the  earthly 
sphere,  but  close  and  seal  that  of  the  heavenly. 
Let  us  reflect  that  Science  has  her  limits.  By  the 
craving  for  power  the  angels  fell,  by  the  craving  for 
knowledge  men.” 

This  exquisite  modesty  of  the  true  man  of  science 
exactly  conforms  to  the  judgment  of  the  true  theo¬ 
logian.  Thus  Butler’s  fifteenth  sermon  is  on  the 
ignorance  of  man,  and  nothing  better  was  ever,  or 
could  be,  said  on  that  subject.  The  bounds  of  our 
knowledge  are  designed  and  firmly  set.  It  is  not  in 


SCIENCE 


193 


knowledge  that  our  happiness  is  found,  but  in 
obedience  to  the  moral  law.  Our  highest  wisdom  is 
“that  we  learn  to  keep  our  heart;  to  govern  and 
regulate  our  passions,  mind,  affections:  that  so  we 
may  be  free  from  the  impotencies  of  fear,  envy, 
malice,  covetousness,  ambition;  that  we  may  be 
clear  of  these  considered  as  vices  seated  in  the  heart, 
considered  as  constituting  a  general  wrong  temper; 
from  which  general  wrong  frame  of  mind  all  the  mis¬ 
taken  pursuits,  and  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  un¬ 
happiness  of  life,  proceed.  He  who  should  find  out 
one  rule  to  assist  us  in  this  work  would  deserve 
infinitely  better  of  mankind  than  all  the  improvers 
of  other  knowledge  put  together.”  1 

This  modest  temper  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
masters  of  those  who  know,  and  it  is  always  refresh¬ 
ing  for  this  reason  to  turn  from  the  sciolists  to  the 
men  of  science,  from  the  controversialists,  whose 
interest  in  science  is  to  find  weapons  against  religion, 
to  the  genuine  discoverers  whose  love  of  science  will 
lead  them  to  religion,  if  science  but  points,  not 
obscurely,  in  that  direction. 

No  book  of  science  was  ever  treated  so  scurvily 
by  the  religious  world  as  “The  Origin  of  Species.” 
The  worst  absurdities  of  the  mediaeval  Church  were 
repeated,  at  least  by  the  temper  and  tongues  of  theo¬ 
logians,  in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
When  Wilberforce  at  the  Oxford  meeting  of  the 
British  Association  attempted  to  dispose  of  Darwin 

1  “Gladstone’s  edition  of  Butler  (Sermons),  p.  273. 


o 


194 


GREAT  ISSUES 


with  a  sneer,  and  when  Huxley  attracted  the  atten¬ 
tion  of  the  world  by  the  trouncing  which  he  adminis¬ 
tered  to  the  eloquent  bishop,  it  was  natural  to  con¬ 
clude  that  religion  and  science  were  at  daggers  drawn. 
But  what  does  Darwin  himself  say,  in  that  very 
book  which  challenged  the  traditional  theology  of 
the  time?  He  makes  no  presumptuous  claim;  he 
neither  denies  God  nor  disputes  the  validity  of 
religion.  He  is  the  first  to  admit  that  the  truth  of 
science  leaves  the  ultimate  causes  unexplained.  “  It 
is  no  valid  objection,”  he  says,  “that  the  theory 
throws  no  light  as  yet  on  the  far  higher  problem  of 
the  origin  of  life.  Who  can  explain  what  is  the 
essence  of  the  attraction  of  gravity?  No  one  objects 
to  following  out  the  results  consequent  on  this  un¬ 
known  influence  of  attraction,  though  Leibnitz 
formerly  accused  Newton  of  introducing  ‘occult 
qualities  and  miracles  into  philosophy,’  and  it  was 
subversive  of  natural  and  inferentially  of  revealed 
religion.”  1 

How  admirable  is  this  scientific  temper,  the  clear 
purpose  to  see  and  know  what  one  can,  in  spite  of 
the  fulminations  of  entrenched  authority,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  frank  and  ready  recognition  of  the 
unseen  and  unknown,  as  the  determining  factor  of 
our  attitude  to  life.  Precisely  similar  is  the  attitude 
of  Lyell,  as  he  draws  near  to  the  end  of  his  great  work 
on  the  Principles  of  Geology:  “We  aspire  in  vain 
to  assign  limits  to  the  works  of  creation  in  space, 

1  “Origin  of  Species,”  sub  fine. 


SCIENCE 


195 


whether  we  examine  the  starry  heavens  or  that 
world  of  minute  animalcules  which  is  revealed  to  us 
by  the  microscope.  We  are  prepared  therefore  to 
find  that  in  time  also  the  confines  of  the  universe  lie 
beyond  the  reach  of  mortal  ken.  But  in  whatever 
direction  we  pursue  our  researches,  whether  in 
time  or  space,  we  discover  everywhere  the  clear 
proofs  of  a  creative  Intelligence,  and  of  His  fore¬ 
sight,  wisdom,  and  power.” 

This  is  the  temperate  wisdom  of  science.  There 
are  of  course  blatant  personalities  that  utter  them¬ 
selves  in  their  scientific  work,  just  as  there  are  blatant 
personalities  that  utter  themselves  in  their  religious 
work.  But  science  must  not,  any  more  than  reli¬ 
gion,  be  discredited  by  its  unworthy  representatives. 
There  are  religious  men  who  are  definitely  anti- 
scientific;  there  are  scientific  men  who  are  anti- 
religious.  But  truly  religious  men  will  always  re¬ 
spect  science,  and  truly  scientific  men  will  always 
respect  religion.  There  was  a  delirious  moment  for 
science  in  the  seventies  of  the  last  century,  when 
certain  scientific  investigators  imagined  that  they  had 
got  on  the  track  of  a  materialistic  explanation  of  the 
universe,  including  life  and  man.  The  fallacy  was 
quickly  exposed  by  thinkers.  But  it  is  that  false 
confidence  of  a  past  generation  which  is  finding  its 
belated  expression  in  the  minds  of  the  multitude 
to-day.  The  totally  changed  attitude  of  genuine 
science  will  presumably  affect  the  multitude  in  the 
course  of  another  generation.  The  masses  live  on 


196 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Tyndall  and  Huxley  still,  because  their  works  are 
just  popularized  and  within  the  reach  of  the  half- 
educated.  Lord  Kelvin  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  will 
reach  the  masses  in  another  twenty  years.  The 
limitations  which  Science  in  her  perfect  modesty 
admits  will  be  generally  known  and  admitted. 
Haeckel’s  “Riddle  of  the  Universe,”  which  now  ex¬ 
cites  the  gaping  wonder  of  the  ignorant,  will  be  recog¬ 
nized,  not  as  the  promise  of  a  new  dawn,  but  as  the 
murky  cloudrack  of  a  day  that  has  passed  away. 
But  to  know  the  spirit  of  the  science  which  is  truly 
science  to-day,  let  us  examine  the  position  of  the 
Regius  Professor  of  Natural  History  in  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Aberdeen.  Professor  Thomson  has  written 
a  book  called  “The  Bible  of  Nature,”  which  gives  a 
more  accurate  view  of  modern  science  than  the  lay¬ 
man  is  likely  to  acquire  by  an  attempt  to  examine 
all  the  sciences  for  himself.  Here  we  find  recog¬ 
nized  the  fundamental  limitation  of  science.  “The 
aim  of  science  is  not  to  explain  but  to  redescribe  in 
simpler  terms,  to  find  a  common  denominator,  but 
its  interpretations  are  always  in  terms  of  conceptual 
formulae,  such  as  matter,  energy,  ether,  gravitation, 
chemical  affinity,  and  so  on  —  which  are  not  them¬ 
selves  self-explanatory,  which  are,  in  fact,  intellectual 
counters,  symbols  of  the  mysterious  reality.  .  .  . 
Scientific  interpretations  do  not  deal  with  causes  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  speak  of  a  personal  agency  as 
a  cause.”  1 


1  “The  Bible  of  Nature,”  p.  85. 


SCIENCE 


197 


Science  observes  a  world  developing;  it  formu¬ 
lates  the  law  of  the  development;  but  the  cause  re¬ 
mains  beyond  the  observation  and  analysis  of 
science.  She  is  bound  to  recognize  that  cause  as 
there  at  the  same  moment  that  she  confesses  her  in¬ 
ability,  by  the  methods  at  her  disposal,  to  discover 
or  to  explain  it.  If  she  denies  the  cause  she  belies 
herself;  she  denies  that  which  is  absolutely  neces¬ 
sary  as  the  explanation  of  all  that  she  is  affirming; 
she  ceases  to  be  Science,  just  because  she  refuses  to 
recognize  what  is  beyond  her.  For,  as  Kant  said: 
“The  universe  must  sink  into  the  abyss  of  nothing¬ 
ness,  unless  we  admit  that,  besides  this  infinite  chain 
of  contingencies,  there  exists  something  that  is 
primal  and  self-subsistent,  something  which  as  the 
cause  of  this  phenomenal  world  secures  its  continu¬ 
ance  and  preservation.” 

There  was  a  time  when  Philosophy  and  Religion 
pointed  out  this  limitation  of  Science  in  an  offensive 
way,  as  if  they  were  only  interested  to  deny  her 
knowledge  in  order  to  advance  their  own  preten¬ 
sions.  To  twit  Science  with  its  agnosticism  was  a 
favourite  recreation  of  Philosophy  and  Religion  in 
an  era  which  is,  we  hope,  finally  passing  away.  “A 
creature  whose  sphere  of  vision  is  a  speck,  whose 
experience  is  a  second,  sees  the  pencil  of  Raphael 
moving  over  the  canvas  of  the  Transfiguration.  It 
sees  the  pencil  moving  over  its  own  speck  during  its 
own  second  of  existence  in  its  own  particular  direc¬ 
tion,  and  it  concludes  that  the  formula  expressing 


198 


GREAT  ISSUES 


that  direction  is  the  secret  of  the  whole.”  1  But 
now  it  is  Science  herself  that  proclaims  her  limita¬ 
tions.  She  only  urges  her  claim  to  know  what  she 
does  know,  and  ventures  to  say  to  her  insolent 
critics  of  a  former  epoch,  “My  knowledge,  however 
small,  cannot  be  offset  by  your  ignorance,  however 
great.” 

“If  we  ask  Science  to  tell  us  of  the  great  clock- 
maker,  she  will  be  quite  silent ,  for  no  man  by  search¬ 
ing  can  find  out  God ;  but  if  we  ask  how  it  precisely 
is  that  the  mainsprings  work,  or  why  it  exactly  is 
that  the  weights  go  down,  Science  will  answer  that 
she  does  not  know.  If  we  ask  Science  to  tell  us  why 
there  is  a  world-clock  or  a  succession  of  world- 
clocks  at  all,  she  will  again  be  quite  silent ,  for  Science 
takes  no  stock  in  purposes;  but  if  we  ask  how  the 
first  clock  from  which  all  the  other  clocks  are  de¬ 
scended  came  into  being,  Science  will  answer  that 
she  does  not  know.”  2 

Science,  then,  frankly  and  eagerly  avows  that  she 
cannot  tell  us  the  cause  or  the  origin,  the  purpose  or 
the  end.  If  these  are  to  be  known  they  must  be  dis¬ 
covered  by  another  method.  She  does  not  deny 
that  we  want  to  know  them,  she  may  even  admit 
that,  as  men  bound  to  live  a  human  life,  we  must 
know  them,  or  surmise  them.  She  has  no  grudge 
against  another  method,  another  mode  of  knowing, 

1  Prof.  Goldwin  Smith’s  “Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,” 
ii.  p.  49. 

2  “The  Bible  of  Nature,”  p.  45. 


SCIENCE 


T99 


always  provided  that  it  does  not  conflict  with  her 
own  or  dispute  the  knowledge  which  is  by  her  most 
certain  ways  established. 

Let  us  make  a  note  of  this,  for  it  is  fundamental. 
The  knowledge  of  cause  and  purpose  is  outside  the 
field  of  Science  altogether. 

Within  the  limit  thus  defined  Science  with  her 
ingrained  modesty  admits  that  though  she  knows 
much,  there  is  more  that  she  does  not  yet  know. 
She  is  engaged  in  perpetual  and  fruitful  discovery. 
In  view  of  her  rapid  progress,  she  is  justified  in  hope. 
She  cannot  explain  the  tides,  or  the  weather,  or  the 
formation  of  the  worlds,  she  cannot  account  for  the 
eighty  odd  elements  out  of  which  apparently  all  things 
are  formed,  but  she  follows  on  to  know.  If  the  ex¬ 
planation  eludes  her  she  will  not  pretend  that  she 
knows;  but  if  she  discovers  it  she  demands  its 
acceptance.  She  is  exploring  a  boundless  country 
not  hitherto  explored.  As  she  blazes  the  trees,  and 
marks  the  track  in  the  log-book  or  on  the  map,  not¬ 
ing  the  natural  features  as  she  passes,  she  is  well 
aware  that  she  leaves  the  country  on  either  hand 
untouched,  but  she  is  dogmatic  about  the  path  she 
has  made,  because  on  it  she  intends  to  return  and 
from  it  to  start  out  on  fresh  explorations. 

The  energy  and  certainty  of  Science  within  her 
limits  are  very  easily  mistaken  for  presumption  be¬ 
yond  them.  Her  determination  to  know  all  that 
she  can  looks  a  little  like  a  claim  to  know  all  things. 
But  this  is  to  misjudge.  Granted  that  she  cannot 


200 


GREAT  ISSUES 


explain  life  itself,  and  cannot  even  give  any  com¬ 
pletely  satisfactory  definition  of  the  word  “  alive, ” 
she  does  not  feel  precluded  from  experiments  to  find 
whether  life  can  be  resolved  into  some  other  form  of 
activity,  chemical,  physical,  electrical.  And  in  any 
case  she  knows  it  is  her  function  to  chronicle  all  the 
characteristics,  changes,  developments  of  organisms. 

She  does  not  know  how  man  arose  or  whence 
he  came  or  when  he  began,  or  where  his  first  home 
was.  We  are  in  a  deplorable  state  of  ignorance  on 
the  whole  subject.  But  she  has  no  hesitation  in 
tracing  his  connections  with  other  animals  by  com¬ 
parative  anatomy.  Anthropology  collects  and  for¬ 
mulates  all  that  can  be  known  about  man,  his  primi¬ 
tive  state,  his  growth,  his  distribution  over  the  earth, 
his  customs,  his  institutions.  If  she  cannot  trace 
his  origin  or  his  destiny,  she  will  spare  nothing  to 
know  all  she  can  about  him  between  his  unseen 
cradle  and  his  unknown  grave.  She  does  not  de¬ 
ceive  herself,  she  does  not  boast;  knowing  how 
much  she  knows,  she  also  knows  how  little.  As 
Professor  Ray  Lankester,  the  typical  man  of  science, 
says:  “The  whole  order  of  nature,  including  living 
and  lifeless  matter  —  from  man  to  gas  —  is  a  net¬ 
work  of  mechanism,  the  main  features  and  many 
details  of  which  have  been  made  more  or  less  ob¬ 
vious  to  the  wondering  intelligence  of  mankind  by 
the  labour  and  ingenuity  of  scientific  investigators. 
But  no  sane  man  has  ever  pretended,  since  science 
became  a  definite  body  of  doctrine,  that  we  know  or 


SCIENCE 


201 


ever  can  hope  to  know  or  conceive  of  the  possibility 
of  knowing,  whence  this  mechanism  has  come,  why 
it  is  there,  whither  it  is  going,  and  what  there  may 
or  may  not  be  beyond  and  beside  it  which  our  senses 
are  incapable  of  appreciating.  These  things  are  not 
explained  by  science,  and  never  can  be.”  1 

Nothing  can  be  more  explicit  than  this.  “Let  us 
admit,  as  scientific  men,  that  of  real  origin,  even  of 
the  simplest  thing,  we  know  nothing,  not  even  of  a 
pebble.”  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  speaking  for  the 
whole  body  of  scientific  men.2  Could  anything  be 
more  debonair,  more  unpretentious.  It  is  this  tem¬ 
per  of  mind  which  has  conciliated  the  goodwill  of 
the  modern  world,  even  of  the  religious  world,  to 
science.  After  all,  it  is  only  vain  pretensions  to 
knowledge,  and  the  arrogance  which  comes  from 
claims  of  infallibility  or  omniscience,  that  we  resent. 
Directly  Science  surrenders  baseless  claims,  we  all 
very  gratefully  admit  the  claims  which  are  well 
based.  Her  frankness  begets  frankness.  When 
she  tells  us  that  she  does  not  and  cannot  know  the 
origin  or  the  purpose,  we  listen  eagerly  to  all  that 
she  does  know.  We  heartily  accept  her  implied 
counsel,  that  if  we  desire  to  know  origin  and  purpose 
we  must  necessarily  apply  elsewhere.  We  begin  to 
see  how  we  have  misunderstood  her  intention,  and 
have  interpreted  her  agnosticism  as  a  declaration 
that  knowledge  was  impossible,  and  not  merely  a 

1  “The  Bible  of  Nature,”  p.  234. 

3  “Ideals  of  Science  and  Faith,”  p.  27. 


202 


GREAT  ISSUES 


declaration  that  she,  as  Science,  did  not  know.  On 
calmer  reflection  we  perceive  that  even  Huxley,  the 
father  of  Agnosticism,  was  by  no  means  so  negative 
as  his  truculence  made  him  to  appear:  “It  is  very 
desirable  to  remember  that  evolution  is  not  an  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  Cosmos,  but  merely  a  generalized 
statement  of  the  method  and  results  of  that  process. 
And  further,  that  if  there  is  any  proof  that  the  cos¬ 
mic  process  was  set  going  by  an  agent,  then  that 
agent  will  be  the  creator  of  it  and  of  all  its  products, 
although  supernatural  intervention  may  remain 
strictly  excluded  from  its  further  course.”  1  This  is 
very  handsome !  Huxley  after  all  is  not  unwilling 
to  admit  God,  if  the  theologians  will  not  be  so  cock¬ 
sure  that  they  know  all  about  Him. 

But  this  noble  confession  of  science  evidently 
carries  us  a  little  farther  than  it  at  first  seems  to  do. 
The  science  which  makes  the  confession  is  physical 
science,  or  natural  science  —  that  is  to  say,  it  is  the 
knowledge  of  Nature  which  the  human  mind  can 
acquire.  This  knowledge  of  Nature  is  restricted 
within  the  limits  which  have  been  stated.  But  the 
human  mind,  the  organ  of  investigation,  is  able  also 
to  investigate  itself.  Being  itself  a  cause,  it  is  ever 
impelled  to  inquire  into  causes;  living  of  necessity  a 
conscious  and  purposeful  life,  it  cannot  be  indiffer¬ 
ent  to  purposes.  When  therefore  natural  or  physical 
science  declares  its  inability  to  discover  cause  or  pur¬ 
pose,  the  mind,  by  an  intrinsic  necessity,  turns  in 

1  Op.  cit.  p,  233. 


SCIENCE 


203 


upon  itself,  and  by  its  discovery  of  cause  and  pur¬ 
pose  within,  it  attempts  to  interpret  the  world  with¬ 
out.  And  because  of  the  certainty  of  itself,  though 
a  posteriori  in  experience  is  genetically  a  priori ,  it  in¬ 
sists  on  regarding  this  field  of  inquiry  also  as  scien¬ 
tific.  In  other  words,  there  is  a  mental  science  as 
well  as  a  physical.  Psychology  comes  into  existence 
as  well  as  physiology,  and  with  the  same  claim  to  be 
heard. 

What  Science,  understood  as  physical  science, 
confesses  its  inability  to  discover,  Science  understood 
as  mental  science  may  discover,  and  establish,  at 
least  pragmatically,  as  certain. 

But  without  pursuing  the  discoveries  which 
mental  science  is  making  and  may  make  in  the 
realities  that  lie  behind  and  produce  phenomena,  we 
may  turn  back  to  press  the  value  of  science,  and  of 
the  scientific  method,  understood  in  the  narrower, 
the  physical,  sense. 

Let  it  be  granted  for  the  moment  that  there  are 
two  fields  of  investigation,  the  field  of  natural  law, 
the  field  of  contingency,  the  field  of  physical  facts, 
the  field  of  what  common-sense  regards  as  the  most 
real,  the  most  certain;  and  the  field  of  first  cause 
and  ultimate  purpose,  the  field  of  spiritual  experi¬ 
ences,  the  field  which  to  the  philosopher  or  to  the 
mystic  appears  most  sure,  but  to  the  man  of  science 
vague  and  uncertain. 

Suppose  these  two  spheres  of  thought  and  obser¬ 
vation  to  be  related  to  each  other  in  the  same  way 


204 


GREAT  ISSUES 


as  the  solid  earth  and  the  impalpable  heavens.  The 
sphere  of  science  is  the  solid  earth,  the  sphere  of 
metaphysics  and  of  religion  alike  is  the  circumam¬ 
bient  heaven  in  which  the  earth  is  embosomed. 
Solid  under  our  feet,  real,  practical,  open  to  experi¬ 
ment  and  research,  is  this  field  of  Nature.  With 
its  land  and  sea,  its  hill  and  plain,  its  rushing  rivers 
and  its  central  fires,  its  minerals,  its  vegetation,  its 
animal  life,  its  restless  human  inhabitants,  it  is  a 
fact  concrete  enough.  We  may  spend  a  lifetime  in 
exploring  it,  and  be  with  Newton  like  a  child  upon 
the  sea-shore  handling  still  only  a  few  of  the  golden 
sand-grains.  The  circumambient  sphere,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  impalpable  and  apparently  infinite. 
The  waveless  heaven  itself,1  to  use  the  phrase  of 
Plotinus,  though  it  touches  us,  is  remote,  impalpable, 
untouched  by  the  agitations  and  the  cataclysms  of 
the  Nature  we  know.  The  starry  sky  is  not  stained 
by  our  smoke,  nor  affected  by  our  cries,  nor  shaken 
by  the  earthquake  which  ruins  cities.  Its  life  glitters 
and  proceeds  in  lofty  disregard  of  the  dim  spot  which 
we  call  earth. 

Adopting  for  the  moment  the  convenient  sym¬ 
bolism  suggested  by  the  analogy  of  our  terrestrial 
habitation,  set  in  the  midst  of  the  celestial  environ¬ 
ment,  and  calling  natural  science  earth  and  the 
other  science  heaven,  it  is  worth  while  to  realize 
how  much  better  it  is,  in  discovery  and  in  teaching, 
to  move  from  earth  to  heaven  than  from  heaven  to 


1  aSros  oijpavos  tiKtifioov. 


SCIENCE 


205 


earth.  The  movement  in  the  past  has  been  from 
heaven  to  earth.  The  d  priori  road,  derisively  called 
the  “high  priori  road  ,”  of  metaphysics  and  of  theol¬ 
ogy  has  been  to  bring  abstract  theories,  authoritative 
dogmas,  certainties  which  disdain  and  repudiate 
proof,  to  override  the  earthy  knowledge,  to  browbeat 
the  humble  investigators  into  physical  uniformities 
and  causes.  It  is  with  a  crimson  sense  of  shame 
that  we  record  how  the  Sorbonne,  the  Theological 
Faculty  of  Paris,  treated  Buffon  in  1751.  It  de¬ 
clared  that  fourteen  propositions  in  his  Natural  His¬ 
tory  were  reprehensible  as  contrary  to  the  creed  of 
the  Church.  The  first  of  these  was  the  theory, 
more  and  more  adopted  by  modern  science,  that  the 
continents  were  produced  out  of  the  sea,  and  will  by 
denudation  relapse  again,  when  new  continents  will 
be  formed.  Yes,  we  blush  for  our  humanity  to  hear 
the  great  naturalist  compelled  by  the  theological 
tyrants  to  forswear  himself:  “I  declare  that  I  had 
no  intention  to  contradict  the  text  of  Scripture,  that 
I  believe  most  firmly  all  therein  related  concerning 
the  Creation.  I  abandon  all  in  my  book  respecting 
the  formation  of  the  earth,  and  generally  all  which 
may  be  contrary  to  the  narration  of  Moses.” 

No  wonder  that  natural  science  learnt  to  dread 
and  to  hate  theology.  I  remember  with  what 
amazement  I,  as  a  youth,  heard  Benjamin  Jowett, 
in  St.  Mary’s,  Oxford,  lay  down  as  one  of  the  indis¬ 
pensable  conditions  of  true  religion  a  ready  and 
candid  acceptance  of  the  facts  of  science.  In  con- 


206 


GREAT  ISSUES 


trast  with  that  high  priori  road  of  mediaeval  theo¬ 
logy,  it  is  now  recognized,  as  the  result  of  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  such  theologians  as  Jowett,  that  the  better 
and  safer  course  is  to  proceed  from  earth  to  heaven. 
The  reasons  are  plain:  here  we  are,  obviously  on 
earth,  here  are  our  verifiable  facts,  here  the  certain¬ 
ties  which  give  us  the  sense  of  reality.  If  from  the 
basis  of  this  solid  earth  we  can  rear  our  heads  into 
the  heavens  and  assay  the  starry  way,  well  and 
good,  but  to  posit  ourselves  among  the  stars  and  de¬ 
scend  on  the  earth  with  corrective  formulae  and  stage 
thunder  is  a  method  now  out  of  date. 

I  read  the  other  day  an  interesting  book  by  Dr. 
Leighton,  entitled  “The  Greatest  Life.”  It  prom¬ 
ised  more  than  it  fulfilled,  but  the  promise  was 
excellent.  He  set  out  to  show  how  religious  teach¬ 
ing  misses  the  mark  because  it  will  not  start  from 
the  assured  truths  which  are  the  common  possession 
of  the  modern  world.  He  presented  in  strong 
colours  the  feeling  of  the  educated  man  for  his  reli¬ 
gious  teachers,  the  mingled  contempt  and  irritation 
with  which  the  man  in  the  pew  listens  to  the  man  in 
the  pulpit,  finally  ceasing  to  listen  and  staying  away. 
The  argument  was  to  show  that  religion  should  be 
presented  along  the  lines  of  common  knowledge,  of 
science.  All  this  was  excellent.  The  proposed  lines 
were  suggestive  enough  to  consider,  and  to  supple¬ 
ment.  Man,  says  our  teacher,  is  made  up  of  physi¬ 
cal  and  non-physical  elements,  which,  in  both  cases, 
are  either  innate  or  acquired.  These  consist  of 


SCIENCE 


207 


susceptibilities  to  what  is  favourable  to  life  and  im¬ 
munities  from  that  which  is  injurious  to  it.  The 
greatest  life,  therefore,  is  produced  by  acquiring,  if 
we  do  not  already  inherit,  the  susceptibilities,  physi¬ 
cal,  mental,  moral,  and  emotional,  to  the  best,  and 
immunities,  physical,  mental,  moral,  and  emotional, 
against  the  evil,  in  our  environment. 

By  a  formula  of  this  kind  life  and  knowledge  are 
unified,  the  religious  is  brought  into  line  with  the 
secular,  the  religious  is  explained  in  terms  of  the 
secular.  The  theorem  is  worked  out  in  detail.  A 
picture  is  drawn  of  the  personality,  physical  and 
mental,  acquiring  the  derived  susceptibilities  and 
immunities.  The  final  sentence  is:  “There  is  a 
record  in  a  book  of  a  man  who  was  entirely  good, 
immune  to  evil  and  yet  of  human  parents.  His 
mother’s  name  was  Mary.” 

Now,  I  cannot  pretend  that  the  working  out  of 
the  theorem  exactly  fulfils  the  promise  of  the  vigor¬ 
ous  criticism  with  which  the  book  opens.  But  as  an 
illustration  of  method  it  is  admirable.  Let  us  travel 
from  the  observed  facts  of  the  world  and  of  life, 
treating  them  with  reverence  and  fidelity;  let  us 
deny  to  any  theory,  however  imposing,  the  right  to 
dispute  any  fact,  however  humble.  If  all  we  can 
know  of  the  earth  is  its  gradual  formation  out  of  a 
fire-mist,  through  the  solidification  of  rocks,  the 
action  of  water,  the  emergence  and  development  of 
life,  the  story  which  geology  unfolds,  let  us  hold  fast 
to  that  knowledge  and  be  by  no  means  tempted  to 


208 


GREAT  ISSUES 


deny  it  because  a  Book  or  a  Church,  which  gives  us 
help  in  other  directions,  is  on  this  point  uninstructed. 
Scientific  knowledge  may,  if  you  like  to  say  so,  be 
lower,  less  satisfying,  less  important,  but  it  is  know¬ 
ledge,  it  is  sure  and  indisputable.  Our  first  duty  is 
to  accept  that;  the  chance  of  our  gaining  a  correct 
knowledge  in  the  transcendental  sphere  depends  on 
our  honesty  in  receiving  the  knowledge  which  is 
given  us  in  this  so-called  lower  sphere. 

Here  there  are  things  we  can  know.  We  can  dis¬ 
tinguish  between  food  and  poison,  between  health 
and  disease.  We  can  learn  what  makes  the  healthiest 
body  at  any  rate,  what  improves  the  race,  what  con¬ 
stitutes  physical  progress  for  mankind.  All  this  is 
sacred  knowledge.  If  we  get  no  farther,  it  is,  as 
knowledge,  divine.  If  religion  can  take  no  higher 
range,  this,  at  any  rate,  is  religious.  To  know  the 
organism  and  its  environment,  to  make  and  to  keep 
the  organism  healthy,  to  modify  the  environment  in 
order  to  secure  this  result,  this  is  religion.  Religion 
springs  out  of  the  earth.  It  does  not  wholesomely 
expand  in  the  empyrean  unless  it  is  firmly  rooted  in 
the  ground. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  extreme  modesty  of  modern 
science  enables  us  to  concede  this  position  without 
misgiving.  While  earth  denied  heaven,  the  human 
spirit  could  but  spurn  the  earth,  for  its  affinity  is 
elsewhere.  But  when  earth  admits  the  heavens  and 
does  not  affect  to  climb  them  or  to  explain  them,  we 
can  with  gratitude  stand  upon  the  earth  to  attempt 


SCIENCE 


209 


the  climb  and  the  explanation.  The  reward  for 
such  fidelity  to  humble  fact  is  rich  and  growing. 
Since  this  attitude  has  been  adopted  progress  has 
gone  on  apace;  a  reformed  religion  is  taking  pos¬ 
session  of  the  world ;  it  is  the  religion  which  is  securely 
rooted  in  science,  in  the  knowledge  and  confession  of 
things  as  they  are. 

The  scientific  spirit  has  been  like  the  breath  of 
life  to  biblical  study,  to  dogmatic  theology,  to  the 
claims  of  the  Church.  It  is  intrinsically  more  rever¬ 
ent  than  the  credulity  which  gulps  down  the  super¬ 
stitions  and  the  improved  dogmas  and  the  unsup¬ 
ported  claims  of  tradition.  That  credulity  is  the 
mother  of  superstition,  and  superstition  is  by  far  the 
most  deadly  foe  of  religion.  A  big  dogmatic  claim, 
bearing  down  on  the  intelligence,  and  claiming  in¬ 
stant  and  absolute  submission,  has  the  appearance  of 
securing  the  authority  of  religion.  But  in  reality  it 
has  precisely  the  opposite  effect;  it  secures  the  power 
of  superstition,  which  in  its  turn  is  the  death  of 
religion.  That  dogmatic  claim,  of  an  infallible  Book 
whose  fallibility  may  not  be  suggested,  of  a  vener¬ 
able  Creed  which  must  be  accepted  whole  as  the 
major  premiss  of  every  argument,  of  an  infallible 
Church  which  enforces  its  authority  by  temporal 
power  or  by  ghostly  terror,  is  in  the  working  the 
sure  death  of  religion.  The  Bible,  the  dogma,  the 
Church  takes  the  place  of  the  living  God ;  the  soul’s 
submission  to  these  authorities  takes  the  place  of 
that  reasonable,  voluntary,  and  lively  surrender  to 


210 


GREAT  ISSUES 


God  Himself  which  is  the  essence  of  religion.  It  is 
the  scientific  spirit  which  has  undermined  these 
usurping  authorities,  and,  though  the  result  is  not 
immediately  seen,  driven  us  to  God  Himself.  These 
authorities  may  in  a  sense  substantiate  their  claims 
in  the  face  of  the  scientific  spirit,  and  may  become 
as  real  and  powerful  as  ever.  But  if  they  do  so, 
their  influence  is  wholesome.  For  the  difference 
between  the  pre-scientific  claim  of  these  authorities 
and  the  post-scientific  claim  is  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  an  absolute  and  a  constitutional  monarchy. 
A  constitutional  sovereign  exercises  his  influence 
because  he  is  appointed  and  acknowledged  and  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  nation;  and  for  that  reason  he  can 
do  what  for  an  absolute  sovereign  would  be  danger¬ 
ous.  In  the  same  way  a  religious  authority,  estab¬ 
lished  in  the  face  of  science,  can  go  even  farther  than 
the  absolutism  of  an  a  priori  and  indefeasible  au¬ 
thority,  which  is  not  established  by  truth,  but  claims 
to  override  it,  and  even  to  determine  what  truth  is. 

The  scientific  spirit  is  cautious;  it  proceeds  from 
fact  to  fact,  and  from  the  accumulation  of  tested 
facts  to  provisional  inferences;  but  the  inferences 
are  always  open  to  correction,  if  fresh  facts  emerge. 
This  is  the  indispensable  temper  of  science;  it  is 
also  the  indispensable  temper  of  true  religion. 
What  is,  is,  and  we  do  not  want  to  imagine  or  to 
pretend  that  it  is  other  than  it  is.  Truth  overrides 
all  authorities.  The  authorities  may  be  venerable 
and  lofty  as  the  perpetual  hills,  but  truth  is  the 


SCIENCE 


21 1 


overarching  sky.  This  is  the  conviction  established 
by  science.  It  becomes  ingrained  in  all  the  true 
workers  in  science.  To  get  this  conviction  equally 
ingrained  in  religious  men  is  the  security  against 
superstition,  error,  fanaticism.  * 

It  is  worth  while  for  a  moment  to  mark  this  scien¬ 
tific  spirit  of  our  time  at  work  upon  the  established 
authorities  of  religion,  compelling  them  to  justify 
themselves,  and  enduing  them  with  a  new  influence 
only  when  they  have  passed  its  searching  tests. 
Let  us  take  the  Bible.  Invested  with  the  adventi¬ 
tious  power  of  a  supposed  inerrancy,  regarded  as  the 
actual  utterance  of  God  from  beginning  to  end,  a 
Word  which  settled  every  point  of  truth  as  surely 
as  the  Word  of  God  created  the  universe,  the  Bible 
was  necessarily  the  enemy  of  science.  If  the  Bible 
spoke  of  the  sun  going  down  and  rising,  it  was  heresy 
to  say  that  the  earth  revolved  and  went  round  the 
sun.  If  the  Bible  said  that  the  heavens  were  spread 
over  the  earth  as  a  curtain,  it  was  blasphemy  to  speak 
of  the  interstellar  spaces  which,  with  their  sparkling 
and  crowded  solar  systems,  form  the  apparent  arch 
of  heaven  for  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  If  the  Bible 
said  that  the  whole  earth,  sun,  moon,  and  stars  were 
made  in  144  hours,  it  was  impious  to  read  the  record 
of  the  rocks,  and  to  recognize  the  slow  work  of  count¬ 
less  millenniums  in  the  organic  forms  and  the  physi¬ 
cal  transformation  of  the  globe.  The  Bible,  thus 
understood,  was  the  enemy  of  science,  opposed  a 
bar  to  the  progress  of  knowledge,  condemned  the 
seeker  after  truth  as  a  heretic. 


212 


GREAT  ISSUES 


At  the  same  time,  the  biblical  authority  was  hardly 
less  disastrous  in  the  sphere  of  morals.  Everything 
contained  within  its  cover,  a  Word  of  God  intact 
and  complete,  claimed  a  moral  authority  and  finality. 
Cromwell  cracked  the  skulls  of  the  defenders  of 
Drogheda  on  the  strength  of  a  military  regulation, 
a  word  of  God,  in  Deuteronomy.  Pious  men 
roused  Protestantism  to  the  carnage  and  cruelty 
of  the  Thirty  Years’  War  by  an  appeal  to  the  blood¬ 
thirsty  Psalms.  That  most  dismal  of  superstitions, 
the  belief  in  witchcraft,  was  supported  for  centuries 
by  the  authority  of  Scripture.  Many  feeble  and 
deranged  women  have  been  drowned  or  burnt  be¬ 
cause  in  the  Mosaic  Law  of  two  thousand  years  ago 
it  was  said,  “Suffer  not  a  witch  to  live.”  For  was 
not  this  the  word  of  God?  Hideous  superstitions 
and  cruelties  have  been  perpetrated  on  the  authority 
of  the  New  Testament.  Because  an  epistle  says 
that  a  believer  is  not  to  eat  with  a  heretical  teacher, 
Calvin  spurred  the  Church-commonwealth  of  Geneva 
to  burn  Servetus.  Because  in  a  parable  the  Lord 
says,  “Compel  them  to  come  in,”  Torquemada 
racked  and  burned  ten  thousand  heretics  in  Spain, 
and  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  sent  to  exterminate  a  na¬ 
tion,  with  the  papal  benediction.  On  an  ambiguous 
text  in  Matthew  xvi.  is  reared  the  stupendous  des¬ 
potism  of  the  papacy.  On  a  blind  literalism  in 
taking  the  words  of  the  institution  of  the  Supper 
rests  that  monument  of  human  perversity  the  dogma 
of  transubstantiation.  The  Bible,  therefore,  mis- 


SCIENCE 


2I3 


understood  and  misapplied,  has  been  used  to  enforce 
error,  cruelty,  and  spiritual  tyranny. 

But  the  scientific  spirit,  like  a  cleansing  fire,  is 
sweeping  through  the  Bible,  with  the  most  salutary 
results.  It  has  shown  that  the  Bible  is  pre-scientific, 
and,  therefore,  whatever  religious  authority  it  may 
possess,  it  can  never  be  set  up  against  any  scientific 
conclusion.  Science,  which  is  God’s  word  in  the 
facts  of  Nature,  and  the  verifiable  development  and 
laws  of  things,  must  correct  the  Bible,  which  is  God’s 
word  in  the  evolution  of  religion.  The  same  spirit 
has  completely  altered  the  perspective  in  the  moral 
teaching  of  the  Bible.  Here  evolution  has  made 
it  necessary  to  see  a  progress  in  moral  ideas.  No 
moral  precept  for  a  nomadic  people  two  thousand,  or 
three  thousand,  years  ago  can  possibly,  as  such,  be 
binding  on  us.  Moral  precepts  are  relative  to  the 
environment.  They  are  shaped  by  the  social  insti¬ 
tutions  and  standards  of  the  time.  The  stream 
of  moral  ideas  purifies  itself  as  it  runs.  Its  authority 
is  in  the  conscience,  in  the  Spirit,  and  in  the  precepts 
which  are  dictated  by  the  growth  of  the  Spirit  in  the 
body  of  humanity. 

Polygamy  cannot  be  justified  because  Abraham 
practised  it.  Witch-burning  is  not  right  because 
Moses  enjoined  it.  Slavery  is  not  Christian  because 
Christ  said  nothing  against  it.  It  is  no  defence  of 
war  to  say  that  it  is  assumed  and  foretold  in  the  Bible 
even  to  the  end.  The  scientific  spirit  has  entirely 
liberated  us  from  the  bondage  of  the  letter,  and  given 


214 


GREAT  ISSUES 


us  moral  truth  by  which  to  interpret  the  Bible  in 
place  of  the  Bible  to  override  moral  truth.  If  the 
Bible  retains  an  unrivalled  place  as  the  handbook 
of  morality  for  Christendom,  it  is  because,  tested 
and  interpreted  by  the  scientific  spirit,  it  leads  up  to 
.he  purest  and  strongest  moral  principles  that  man 
has  hitherto  discovered.  To  interpret  the  moral 
law  in  terms  of  love,  and  to  find  all  that  law  fulfilled 
in  love,  because  God  is  love,  is  the  highest  hitherto 
attained,  or,  we  may  add,  likely  to  be  attained. 

The  same  scientific  spirit  has  reformed,  and  must 
still  more  reform,  religion.  It  is  fatal  to  the  method 
of  persecution  as  a  means  of  promoting  religion. 
Its  methods  with  heretics  is  to  convince,  not  to  burn, 
them.  No  biblical  authority  can  ever  again  justify 
a  Torquemada  or  a  Calvin.  The  scientific  spirit, 
cool  and  collected,  blows  out  the  fire  at  the  stake. 
Tyranny,  masquerading  as  religion,  is  reduced  to 
shame  before  the  clear  grey  eyes  of  science,  inquiring 
how  truth  can  gain  by  forcing  men  to  profess  what 
they  do  not  believe,  or  by  making  an  irrational  ac¬ 
ceptance  of  formulae  compulsory,  with  or  without  the 
conviction  of  the  heart. 

Huxley  went  one  day  to  dine  with  William  George 
Ward,  the  typical  English  Catholic  of  the  modern 
Catholic  reaction.  He  stepped  to  the  window  and 
peered  out  of  it.  Ward  asked  him  what  he  was 
doing.  “I. was  looking,”  he  said,  “in  your  garden 
for  the  stake ,  Dr.  Ward,  which  I  suppose  you  have 
got  ready  for  us  after  dinner.”  It  was  not  a  joke. 


SCIENCE 


215 


Ward’s  relentless  logic  was  prepared  for  persecution, 
if  it  should  again  become  possible  or  expedient.1 
Huxley  was  more  religious  than  Ward.  From  his 
bracing  air  of  exact  inquiry  and  fearless  acceptance 
of  truth  the  soul  can  easily  pass  into  true  religion. 
But  from  Ward’s  stifling  atmosphere  of  authority 
and  coercion  the  soul  can  only  sink  enervated  into 
modern  Mariolatry  and  worship  of  the  Pope. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  details  to  show  how 
the  scientific  spirit  is  regenerating  dogma  and  the 
creeds,  and  breaking  the  power  of  a  blind  ecclesias- 
ticism.  We  may  shiver  as  we  emerge  from  the 
drenching  douches  of  modern  criticism;  we  may? 
like  children  in  their  first  sea  bath,  fight  with  the 
hands  which  insist  on  submerging  us.  Why  cannot 
the  modernist  be  silent?  Why  should  he  unsettle 
our  faith?  Why  should  rationalism  be  always 
denying  ?  Surely  the  Pope  is  well  advised  in  excom¬ 
municating  the  Abbe  Loisy  and  Father  Tyrrell? 
Would  it  not  be  well  if  we,  too,  could  silence  Mr. 
Foote  and  suppress  the  Freethinker?  Tossed  on 
the  uneasy  waves  of  modern  thought,  swept  from 
one  uncertain  foothold  to  another  more  transitory 
still,  never  able  to  get  an  inference  from  an  estab¬ 
lished  principle  before  the  principle  itself  is  ques¬ 
tioned  and  begins  to  give  way,  we  are  sorely  tempted 
to  fly  to  any  authority  which  will  make  itself  respon¬ 
sible  for  us,  to  recite  the  creeds  with  sonorous  har- 

1  “William  George  Ward,”  by  Wilfrid  Ward,  pp.  159,  168, 
176,  316. 


2l6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


mony,  as  if  voices  would  make  up  for  conviction,  or 
to  fly  into  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which 
is  prepared  to  settle  all  our  religious  questions,  if 
we  will  only  leave  them  to  her,  though,  unhappily, 
she  settles  our  religion  for  us,  too,  by  turning  it  into 
superstition. 

But  this  relentless  bath  is  the  tonic  of  the  soul. 
Only  by  such  douches  do  we  get  a  grip  of  truth. 
The  creeds  are  not  for  reciting,  but  for  believing; 
the  Church  is  not  for  obeying,  but  for  upbuilding 
by  our  faith  and  service  of  love.  The  Articles  of  our 
faith  are  only  religious  if  they  can  establish  them¬ 
selves  in  the  face  of  criticism.  A  Church  is  only 
authoritative  if  it  leads  us  to  the  authority  of  the 
Spirit  and  teaches  us  to  recognize  and  bow  to  that 
authority. 

The  Creeds,  like  the  Bible,  only  preserve  a  living 
power  when  they  are  fearlessly  questioned  and  cor¬ 
rected,  if  necessary,  by  the  later  discoveries  of  truth. 
For  instance,  “I  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church”  is  a  cramping  and  deadening  tenet  if  we 
mean  by  that  Church  the  Church  of  Rome,  the 
system  which  has  blighted  all  the  countries  where  it 
is  dominant,  and  is  kept  comparatively  pure  only 
where  the  majority  of  the  population  has  found  a 
purer  faith.  To  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church 
only  becomes  an  Article  of  religion  when  the  Church 
in  which  belief  is  expressed  is  both  holy  and  Catholic 
—  that  is,  a  Church  which  rests  upon  moral  good¬ 
ness,  and  embraces  all  who  are  truly  Christian. 


SCIENCE 


217 


The  tyranny  of  the  Church,  the  golden  age  of 
Innocent  III.,  to  which  men  like  Ward  look  back 
with  longing  and  admiring  eyes,  has  been  the  most 
difficult  of  all  yokes  which  the  human  spirit  has 
had  to  break.  For  that  tyranny  has  claimed  to  be 
the  authority  of  God,  in  His  fullest  and  perfectest 
manifestation,  Jesus  Christ.  A  spiritual  reforma¬ 
tion  raised  the  banner  of  revolt;  the  unspeakable 
degradation  and  demoralization  of  the  Church  called 
the  virile  nations  to  that  standard;  but  it  is  the 
scientific  spirit,  the  indubitable  breath  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  truth,  wisdom,  beneficence,  which  is  ac¬ 
complishing  the  liberation.  Thus  religion  owes 
much  to  science,  directly,  for  its  fearless  criticism, 
its  love  of  truth,  and  for  its  method  and  spirit;  but 
in  our  day  the  debt  is  increased  by  the  recognition, 
growing  firmer  and  more  decisive  every  year,  that 
science  has  its  limits.  The  genuine  man  of  science 
to-day  frankly  recognizes  that,  as  a  man  of  science, 
he  can  say  nothing  about  ultimate  things.  He  can 
trace  the  succession  of  phenomena,  but  not  the  cause ; 
he  can  tabulate  what  happens,  but  never  can  say 
why  it  happens.  If  therefore  it  is  necessary  to  find 
out  the  cause,  the  why,  there  is  need  of  another 
method,  another  discourse,  as  Plato  would  say. 
A  generation  ago,  when  he  reached  this  modest 
confession,  he  was  disposed  to  say,  that  because  he 
could  not  know  it  could  not  be  known.  “What  I 
don’t  know  isn’t  knowledge”  was  the  confident 
dogmatism  of  Agnosticism.  But  now  he  has 


2l8 


GREAT  ISSUES 


recovered  from  the  triumph  in  not  knowing,  and  is 
increasingly  ready  to  recognize,  first  of  all,  that  we, 
as  men,  must  continue  to  seek  the  cause  and  the  why, 
that  we  are  ourselves  causes,  and  therefore  can  never 
rest  in  the  ignorance  of  the  cause,  whether  of  the 
universe  or  of  ourselves.  And  if  in  our  own  causality, 
the  nearest  and  surest  fact  of  our  knowledge,  we  have 
an  impulse  to  find  the  cause  of  all,  it  is  growingly 
recognized  that  in  this  known  causality  there  may 
be  the  clue  to  that  cause  that  is  unknown.  By  a 
method,  which  is  not  scientific ,  and  yet  must  be 
allowed  by  science  to  be  valid,  that  cause  may  be 
known.  The  scientific  man  of  yesterday  was  so 
scientific  as  to  forget  that  he  was  a  man;  but  to-day 
he  remembers  that  he  is  a  man,  though  a  scientific 
one.  He  allows  the  imperious  necessity  laid  on  the 
human  spirit  to  find  out  its  origin  and  its  destiny, 
as  he  recognizes  that  the  origin  and  destiny  are  not 
given  in  the  study  of  the  sequences  and  contingencies 
of  the  external  world. 

It  is  therefore  with  the  blessing  of  science,  and  not, 
we  trust,  without  the  continued  guardianship  of  its 
watchful  and  critical  spirit,  that  we  set  out,  in  our 
days,  to  answer  the  great  question.  Science  no 
longer  opposes,  but  approves;  if  she  cannot  help, 
she  does  not  hinder.  Practically,  she  admits  that 
there  is,  beside  the  knowledge  of  which  she  is  mis¬ 
tress,  another  knowledge,  where  she  is  helpless. 
She  bids  the  human  spirit  to  search  out  that  know¬ 
ledge,  as  Herod  bade  the  Magi  to  find  the  Child, 


SCIENCE 


219 


and  promises  that  when  the  object  is  found  she  will 
come  and  worship. 

This  wise  and  temperate  attitude  of  modern  science 
gives  a  promise  of  a  brighter  future.  Our  know¬ 
ledge  will  not  be  divided  into  opposing  hemispheres, 
but  unified  in  a  revolving  and  advancing  globe. 

-'T«- 

The  dreary  spirit  of  yesterday  was  well  described 
by  Sidney  Lanier: 

“O  age,  which  half  believest  thou  half  believest, 

Half  doubt’st  the  substance  of  thy  own  half  doubt, 
And  half  perceiving  that  thou  half  perceivest, 

Stand’st  at  thy  temple  door,  heart  in,  head  out.” 

This  halfness  will  yield  to  a  wholeness.  There  is 
a  promise  abroad: 

“Nay  (so,  dear  heart,  thou  whisperest  in  my  soul), 

’Tis  a  half  time,  but  time  will  make  it  whole.” 

Science  looks  with  a  longing  eye  towards  Divine 
philosophy.  Her  heart  is  hungry  to  know  what, 
on  her  own  lines,  she  cannot  know. 

Catching  this  changed  tone  of  Science,  I  seem 
to  hear  her  say,  through  the  lips  of  her  chief  minis- 
trants  and  most  authoritative  exponents:  “ Though 
it  is  not  my  function,  or  within  my  province,  search 
out,  O  soul  of  man,  what  is  in  thyself.  Thou  art, 
as  thou  hast  always  surmised,  in  a  sense  greater  than 
the  whole  universe  of  phenomena  which  science 
explores, 

“‘For,  though  the  giant  ages  heave  the  hill 
And  break  the  shore,  and  evermore 
Make  and  break  and  work  their  will; 


220 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Though  world  on  world  in  myriad  myriads  roll 
Round  us,  each  with  different  powers 
And  other  forms  of  life  than  ours, 

What  know  we  greater  than  the  soul?’ 

See  what  the  soul  involves.  It  may  be  that  the  caus¬ 
ality  there  is  the  microcosm  of  the  cause  that  initi¬ 
ated  and  sustains  the  macrocosm.  Perhaps  the  life 
there,  the  personality,  the  thought,  the  moral  nature, 
the  heart,  point  to  the  qualities  of  the  cause  of  the 
whole.  It  may  be  that  the  indomitable  demands  of 
consciousness  for  continued  existence  and  for  pro¬ 
gressive  unfolding  point  to  a  life  outside  phenomena, 
a  life  which  I,  as  Science,  am  unable  to  investigate. 
Possibly  in  the  story  of  man,  and  in  the  great  souls 
that  have  been  or  are  in  the  world,  thou  canst  find 
a  solution  of  thy  problems  which  is  not  to  be  found 
in  that  infra-human  life  which  alone  I  can  investi¬ 
gate.  Push  thy  inquiries  along  thy  own  lines,  while 
I  push  mine  along  my  lines.  Possibly  while  I  unfold 
the  harmonious  universe,  thou  wilt  find  its  Orderer 
and  Ruler.  In  the  claims  of  thy  own  moral  nature 
thou  wilt  light  upon  the  great  Teacher.  In  the 
hunger  for  love,  for  life,  for  immortality,  thou  wilt 
find  God.” 

Such  a  magnanimous  behest  coming  from  Science, 
freely  recognizing  the  function  and  the  scope  of 
religion,  is  the  encouragement  also  for  the  prosecu¬ 
tion  of  theology,  the  discipline  which  searches  for 
that  which  Science  cannot  give. 

A  bright  day  is  dawning  for  humanity,  a  day  of 


SCIENCE 


221 


wider  views,  of  completer  and  more  reconciling 
theories.  In  that  day  science  and  religion  will 
supplement  one  another.  Each  will  regard  the  other 
as  indispensable.  Then, 

“.  .  .  mind  and  heart  according  well, 

Shall  make  one  music  as  before, 

But  vaster.” 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THEOLOGY 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  and  while  the  spirit  of  the 
Middle  Ages  survived,  it  was  customary,  at  least 
among  theologians,  to  describe  theology  as  the 
Queen  of  the  Sciences.  Since  God  is  above  the 
world,  theology,  as  the  science  or  knowledge  of  God, 
must  be  above  the  science  or  knowledge  of  the  world. 
But  in  the  restricted  sense  which  the  word  “science” 
has  now  assumed,  theologians  themselves  will  be 
ready  to  admit  that  theology  is  not  a  science  at  all. 
Science  is  the  formulated  knowledge  of  the  contin¬ 
gent;  theology  is  the  quest  of  the  absolute,  which 
science  despairs  of  knowing.  Science  is  not  con¬ 
cerned  with  causes  or  purposes,  but  simply  seeks  to 
trace  uniformities  and  successions  in  phenomena. 
Theology  is  concerned  chiefly  with  the  cause  and  the 
purpose,  which  Science  deliberately  excludes  from 
her  survey.  It  is  therefore  a  confusion  of  terms  to 
speak  of  theology  as  the  queen  of  the  sciences,  if 
by  “  queen”  is  meant  the  science  which  is  chief  among 
the  sister  sciences.  The  description  is  only  correct 
if  the  queen  is  recognized  as  belonging  to  a  different 
order  altogether,  not  the  science  which  rules  the  other 


222 


THEOLOGY 


223 


sciences,  but  the  discipline,  not  itself  a  science,  which 
must  account  for  and  justify  all  the  sciences. 

Theology  is  a  discipline  rather  than  a  science; 
it  is  the  orderly  and  rational  attempt  to  know  that 
which  science  confesses  her  inability  to  know.  There 
is  an  advantage  in  Herbert  Spencer’s  nomenclature: 
the  sphere  of  science  is  the  known  or  the  knowable. 
But  the  explanation  of  the  known  is  the  unknown 
—  that  is,  the  scientifically  unknown.  But  the  un¬ 
known  is  so  far  known  as  that  it  is  the  cause  of  the 
known.  The  effects  to  some  extent  define  the  cause. 
Granting  that  science  has  no  method  or  instruments 
for  exploring  the  unknown,  yet  the  human  mind 
cannot  cease  to  inquire.  Phenomena  themselves 
suggest  much  concerning  the  unknown,  as,  for  in¬ 
stance,  that  it  is  not  only  powerful,  but  intelligent, 
that  it  has  within  it  the  love  of,  and  the  search  for, 
beauty,  and  morality,  and  goodness.  But  the  mind 
itself,  which  is  engaged  in  the  scientific  quest,  is  sure, 
on  self-examination,  that  it  could  not  be  the  product 
of  the  phenomena  that  it  is  investigating.  It,  at  any 
rate,  knows  that  the  unknown  cause  of  itself  is  so 
far  like  itself,  and  unlike  phenomena,  as  to  be  men¬ 
tal,  spiritual,  a  cause  of  the  same  kind  as  itself.  The 
unknown,  therefore,  of  science  cannot  remain  un¬ 
searched.  Not  only  is  the  human  mind  impelled 
by  its  own  constitution  to  search  out  the  Mind  of 
the  world,  but,  by  virtue  of  it  own  consciousness, 
it  is  possessed  with  an  inalienable  conviction  that 
the  Mind  of  the  world  can  reveal  itself,  has  revealed 


224 


GREAT  ISSUES 


itself,  does  reveal  itself.  That  universal  characteris¬ 
tic  of  human  life,  religion,  is  the  witness  to  this  fact. 
Apart  from  science,  before  science  begins,  where 
science  has  ended,  the  human  mind  recognizes, 
seeks,  desires  to  know,  God.  The  results  of  this 
search  are  embodied  in  theologies.  Clearly  a  theol¬ 
ogy,  to  be  true,  must  not  only  be  a  thought  about 
God,  but  a  self-communication  of  God  to  the  human 
mind.  For  of  what  value  would  be  a  theory  of  God, 
however  complete,  an  idea  of  the  Intelligence  which 
produced  the  human  intelligence,  of  the  Being  which 
accounts  for  all  being,  including  ours,  if  that  intel¬ 
ligent  Being  were  completely  cut  off  from  all  com¬ 
munication  with  us  ?  A  God  that  does  not  or  can¬ 
not  reveal  Himself  is,  therefore,  a  caput  mortuum. 
Theology  has  no  vital  bearing  upon  us  unless  it  is  a 
theology  of  revelation,  what  can  be  known  of,  and 
from,  a  God  that  reveals. 

The  nature  of  the  quest,  then,  is  evident.  It  is 
not  scientific.  Scientific  people  may  excuse  them¬ 
selves  from  engaging  in  it.  But  the  human  mind 
cannot  be  dissuaded  from  it.  At  one  time  the  quest 
was  pursued,  not  only  without  the  sanction  of  science, 
but  in  defiance  of  it.  Now  the  temper  of  the  quest 
is  changed.  The  theologian,  knowing  that  Science 
cannot  do  his  work,  yet  asks  Science  to  aid  him.  He 
asks  Science  to  teach  him  her  spirit,  which  sets 
truth  supreme  over  desire;  he  asks  her  to  lend  him 
her  method,  her  patience,  caution,  and  candour; 
he  asks  her  to  afford  him  a  critique,  a  critique  of 


THEOLOGY 


225 


reason,  that  may  at  all  points  chasten  him  and  test 
his  conclusions.  Since  science  declines  to  launch 
out  into  the  sea  to  understand  the  Infinite,  confining 
her  interest  to  terra  jirmay  the  theologian,  launching 
out  fearlessly  on  the  sea,  requests  Science  to  hold  the 
ropes,  and  to  bring  him  back  if  he  is  losing  himself. 

In  this  sense  we  may  have,  and  ought  to  have,  a 
scientific  theology,  a  theology  which  heartily  accepts 
science,  and  seeks  to  know  that  which  science  pre¬ 
supposes  but  cannot  know  —  God.  Theology  is 
not  a  science,  but  is  in  strict  harmony  with  science, 
and  offers  itself  as  the  solution  of  problems  which 
science  cannot  solve. 

This  discipline  has  also  a  point  in  common  with 
the  sciences;  it  is  always  progressing.  That  is  the 
common  feature  of  the  ’logies,  whether  they  be  of 
earth,  or  stars,  or  God.  The  knowledge  of  God, 
theology,  must  change,  just  as  the  knowledge  of 
earth,  geology,  just  as  the  knowledge  of  life,  biology, 
just  as  the  knowledge  of  man,  anthropology,  passes 
from  stage  to  stage  of  advance.  Here  it  comes  into 
line,  and  takes  its  place  with  the  sciences. 

If  theology  claims  an  absoluteness  and  finality, 
she  discredits  herself.  She  is  best  advised  when  she 
reviews  her  past  and  traces  the  progress  hitherto, 
as  a  reason  for  expecting  further  progress  in  the 
future.  Perhaps  it  is  the  claim  to  remain  stagnant 
which  has  most  discredited  theology  among  the 
’logies.  Astrology  advanced  into  astronomy;  the 
visionary  and  fanciful  uses  of  the  stars,  to  forecast 

Q 


226 


GREAT  ISSUES 


human  fates,  passed  into  the  discovery  of  the  vast 
sidereal  systems  in  which  our  solar  system  is  but  a 
point  of  light,  and  men  learnt  to  smile  at  the  sim¬ 
plicity  which  could  fancy  the  constant  planets  hung 
in  the  heavens  and  moved  and  combined,  in  order 
to  determine  the  destiny  of  an  infant  born  on  the 
earth.  Alchemy  passed  into  chemistry ;  the  attempt 
to  transform  the  less  precious  elements  into  gold 
opened  the  door  into  that  wonderland  of  the  chemical 
elements  which  offers  a  treasure  compared  with 
which  gold  itself  is  worthless.  The  study  of  shells 
found  in  the  rocks  has  advanced  with  giant  strides, 
until  within  a  century  men  have  learnt  to  read  the 
history  of  the  earth  and  the  evolution  of  life  on  the 
earth  in  those  silent  records.  If  the  knowledge  of 
earth  and  sky  has  thus  advanced,  wye  are  likely  to 
suspect  a  knowledge  of  God  which  shows  no  similar 
progress.  At  any  rate,  if  any  authority  claims 
that  theology  is  fixed  by  the  Power  that  made  the 
sciences,  clearly  and  finally  complete  from  the  be¬ 
ginning,  the  claim  must,  by  the  scientific  spirit  which 
rules  the  human  mind,  be  fearlessly  questioned.  At 
least  it  must  be  admitted  that  theology  has  changed 
in  the  past.  Christian  theology  is  an  advance  on 
Jewish;  Christian  theology  itself  is  a  record  of 
advance.  It  is  impossible  in  the  light  of  experience 
to  deny  that  theology  may  develop  further,  without 
and  within,  the  Christian  interpretation. 

Thus,  without  identifying  Theology  with  the  sci¬ 
ences,  we  must  assert  the  quality  which  she  shares 


THEOLOGY 


227 


with  them,  the  quality  of  advance,  of  growth,  of 
progress.  Let  us  admit  that  we  live  in  a  breathing, 
progressive  world,  in  which  knowledge  is  ever  grow¬ 
ing  from  more  to  more,  and  the  thoughts  of  men  are 
widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns.  Let  us  catch 
the  spirit  of  the  system  to  which  we  belong,  and  we 
shall  see  that  God  must  be  revealing  Himself  pro¬ 
gressively.  As  the  human  mind  expands,  as  know¬ 
ledge  increases,  as  wider  and  deeper  views  are  taken, 
God,  if  He  be  God,  must  become  larger,  richer,  more 
wonderful,  to  the  human  mind.  To  say  that  we 
hold  the  theology  of  a  former  day,  and  to  be  uncon¬ 
scious  of  the  progress,  is  to  strike  ourselves  out  of  the 
lists  of  life,  and  to  write  down  our  theology  as  dead, 
as  a  hortus  siccus  at  the  best. 

I  have  heard  men  in  later  life  boast  that  their 
theology  was  fixed  at  the  outset,  and  has  never 
changed;  but  that  did  not  seem  to  me  a  proof  of 
the  theology  or  a  credit  to  them.  But  how  much 
more  beside  the  mark  is  it  to  hold  the  theology  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  or  that  of  the  seventeenth ! 
If  we  have  not  gone  beyond  Butler,  we  shall  get 
small  good  from  reading  him.  If  we  are  to  be  bound 
by  the  theology  of  John  Owen  or  Richard  Baxter, 
we  had  better  keep  clear  of  them  altogether. 

Or  what  reason  can  there  be  in  clinging  to  the 
theology  of  the  Reformers,  when  the  whole  value  of 
it  was  that  it  was  presumably  an  advance  on  that  of 
the  Mediaeval  Church?  How  can  we  remain  fixed 
to  Augustine,  when  we  honour  him  only  for  his 


228 


GREAT  ISSUES 


resistance  to  the  narrower  or  less  vital  theology  of 
his  time?  They  who  stick  in  the  theology  of  the 
Fathers  are  not  only  involved  in  the  meshes  of  con¬ 
tradiction,  but  they  shift  their  point  of  view  from 
the  truth  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  an  authority 
which  had  not  yet  learned  to  understand  Him  and 
had  already  got  out  of  touch  with  them. 

The  theology  of  the  Early  Church  is  of  value  his¬ 
torically;  it  does  not  bind;  it  only  suggests.  The 
theology  of  the  New  Testament  is  more  like  a  garden 
of  burgeoning  and  shooting  plants,  which  seem  ever 
to  live  and  to  bear,  than  a  neatly  constructed  system 
of  cut  and  polished  timber. 

This  point  of  contact  between  theology  and  science 
is  not  so  much  in  danger  of  being  lost  as  once  it  was. 
But  we  should  accustom  ourselves  to  it,  and  exercise 
our  minds  in  the  idea  that  theology,  like  all  human 
knowledge,  grows. 

For  is  not  a  stagnant  theology  a  denial  of  the  living 
God,  and  of  that  law,  which  must  be  His,  the  law 
of  development,  the  key  and  interpretation  of  the 
world  and  of  life?  The  most  interesting  change  in 
the  modern  view  of  the  Bible  has  been  the  discovery 
of  this  progressive  movement  in  it,  of  which  appar¬ 
ently  our  Reformers  were  unaware.  There  is  not 
only  a  progressive  manifestation  of  God  in  Scrip¬ 
ture,  but  there  is  an  enlarging  and  deepening  under¬ 
standing  of  Him.  This  fact  is  hidden  by  the  non- 
chronological  arrangement  of  the  literature;  but 
when  the  dates  are  approximately  fixed  —  when, 


THEOLOGY 


229 


for  example,  it  is  understood  that  the  opening  chapter 
of  Genesis  belongs  to  the  latest  and  not  the  earliest 
theologies  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  the  prim¬ 
itive  conceptions  of  God  are  to  be  sought  in  the  Book 
of  Judges  and  the  Book  of  Samuel  —  we  are  able  to 
detect  the  orderly  and  impressive  development. 
In  the  eighth  century  b.c.,  when  Micah  wrote,  the 
idea  still  prevailed  that  Yahwe  was  Israel’s  God, 
and  every  nation  had  its  own  god  (Micah  iv.  5) ; 
but  when  the  Old  Testament  closes,  in  the  latest 
books,  like  Daniel  or  Jonah,  Yahwe  is  the  God 
of  all  the  earth,  God  is  one  and  His  name  one. 

The  New  Testament  is  a  new  theology;  it  is  an 
orderly  development  out  of  the  Old;  to  it  all  the 
lines  of  Old  Testament  history  and  doctrine  have 
led  up,  but  it  is  like  a  new  revelation.  God,  who  has 
spoken  by  His  prophets,  now  speaks  by  a  Son. 
What  formerly  had  been  a  Word  about  God,  uttered 
by  inspired  men,  is  now  the  Word  of  God,  mani¬ 
fested  in  the  flesh.  The  theology  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  therefore,  is  a  climax.  To  it  everything  led 
up,  and  nothing  further  could  be  achieved  until  it 
was  mastered  and  understood.  But  this  theology, 
even  within  the  narrow  spatial  limits  of  the  New 
Testament,  is  seen  progressing.  The  theology  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  an  advance  on  that  of  the  Apo¬ 
calypse.  Nay,  even  in  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul  the 
curve  of  this  progress  can  be  distinctly  traced. 

We  cannot,  therefore,  imagine  that  the  new  the¬ 
ology  of '  Christianity  was  meant  to  be  stagnant  or 


230 


GREAT  ISSUES 


stereotyped.  A  line  was  registered  from  which 
theology  could  not  legitimately  recede ;  but  there  was 
nothing  to  prevent,  there  was  everything  to  promise, 
an  advance  beyond  that  line.  Polytheism  was  for 
ever  impossible;  God  was  one;  Judaism  was  trans¬ 
cended;  God  was  the  God  of  all  men.  Deism  was 
out  of  court;  God  is  a  living,  present,  immanent 
Spirit  in  the  world  that  He  has  made.  Theosophy, 
with  its  endless  vagaries  and  vague  relapses  into 
mysticism,  was  guarded  against  its  besetting  danger 
by  the  historic  Person  of  Christ.  God’s  goodwill 
to  the  world  and  determination  to  save  it  were  put 
beyond  question  as  the  starting-point  of  all  further 
developments. 

But  there  is  no  authority  for  maintaining  that  in 
the  New  Testament  theology  came  to  a  stop,  that 
there  all  that  could  ever  be  known  of  God  is  finally 
put  down.  The  stagnation  which  has  arrested 
Christianity  in  the  old  Churches,  like  the  Syrian, 
the  Coptic,  the  Armenian,  the  Nestorian,  not  to 
mention  others,  is  due  to  this  radical  heresy  of  be¬ 
lieving  in  an  ancient,  final,  and  unprogressive  reve¬ 
lation.  The  Bible  becomes  a  fetich,  and  essentially 
irreligious,  if  it  blinds  us  to  truth  outside  itself,  or 
if  it  is  set  up  to  hinder  the  incoming  of  light  from 
other  quarters.  The  Bible  never  intended,  and 
never  could  have  intended,  to  establish  such  obscu¬ 
rantism.  It  is  from  first  to  last  an  appeal  to  truth 
and  an  incentive  to  discovery.  The  error  has 
rested  on  an  oddly  misapplied  text.  In  Revelation 


THEOLOGY 


23I 


xxii.  18,  19,  which  happens  in  our  Bible  to  come  at 
the  end,  through  chronologically  it  should  come 
nearer  the  beginning,  of  the  New  Testament,  there 
is  a  threat  against  any  one  who  should  add  unto,  or 
take  from,  the  words  of  that  mysterious  book.  The 
ignorance  of  past  generations  applied  this  threat 
to  the  whole  Bible,  which  was  not,  and  could  not, 
have  been  in  the  writer’s  mind ;  for  this  Apocalypse 
only  attained  a  place  in  the  Bible  after  running  the 
gantlet  of  criticism  and  objections  for  two  or  three 
centuries.  To  quote  this  text,  then,  as  a  proof  that 
the  Bible  is  final,  and  as  a  warning  against  adding  to 
or  taking  from  the  canonical  Scriptures,  is  an  example 
of  sheer  ignorance,  such  as  becomes  more  and  more 
impossible  every  day. 

The  Bible,  if  we  may  put  it  in  this  way,  is  not  in 
the  least  anxious  about  its  own  integrity.  Nor  has 
it  any  need  to  be.  Like  the  globe  itself,  which  is 
spun  out  of  the  fringe  of  a  nebula,  and  coheres  by 
its  intrinsic  quality,  not  altered  essentially  by  the 
exhalations  or  fragments  which  it  casts  into  space, 
nor  by  the  meteorites  or  accretions  which  it  gathers 
out  of  the  path  of  its  orbit,  the  Bible  holds  together 
its  parts  by  an  inward  principle,  and  can  bear  com¬ 
posedly  the  freest  criticism.  No  power  on  earth 
can  tear  out  of  it  a  document  that  is  in  it  or  put  into 
it  a  document  that  is  outside.  Its  integrity  and 
solidarity  are  vouched  by  time,  the  slow  work  of 
the  compressing  centuries. 

But  never  does  the  Bible  claim  that  its  theology 


232  GREAT  ISSUES 

is  final,  or  forbid  its  readers  to  receive  new  light  or 
truth  which  may  break  out  from  it  or  break  in  to  it. 
The  better  we  have  understood  the  Bible,  and  the 
more  we  have  caught  its  spirit,  the  more  we  shall 
realize  that  widening  knowledge  must  widen  the 
theology  which  we  have  derived  from  its  pages. 
It  gives  us  a  theology  which  has  within  it  the  potency 
of  growth ;  it  gives  us  this  theology,  not  to  press  in  a 
herbarium,  but  to  plant  in  the  world,  that  it  may  grow. 

In  times  of  swift  expansion,  when  new  fields 
of  investigation  open  up  to  the  human  mind,  and 
legions  of  new  facts  crowd  in  to  enlarge  the  point  of 
view,  theology  must  widen  too.  Theology  must 
always  allow  for  all  the  facts  that  are  discovered. 
The  theology  of  every  age  must  dwell,  not  only  har¬ 
moniously,  but  cordially  with  all  the  knowledge  of 
the  time.  Thus  as  Christianity  was  the  new  theology 
of  the  first  century,  it  requires  us  to  find  the  new 
theology  of  the  twentieth.  We  shall  not  part  with 
Christianity  in  this  enterprise,  for  it  is  a  permanent 
and  verified  truth  with  which  the  world  must  always 
reckon;  we  shall  not  be  tempted  to  part  with  it, 
because  of  its  own  eager  encouragement  to  press  on 
to  higher  knowledge,  and  even  to  greater  works 
than  were  possible  at  the  beginning. 

The  search  for  a  new  theology  is  not  only  per¬ 
missible,  it  is  imperative.  Unless  theology  is  new 
it  is  not  true;  the  theology  of  yesterday  is  not  true 
for  to-day.  But  experience  shows,  the  Bible  itself 
shows,  that  the  new  theology  always  grows  out  of 


THEOLOGY 


233 


the  old,  is  the  natural  development  of  the  old,  con¬ 
serves  and  carries  on  all  the  vital  power  of  the  old. 
There  is  no  breach.  There  is  no  razing  to  the 
ground,  to  build  a  new  structure  on  the  ruins.  The 
old  house  is  enlarged  and  modernized,  but  it  is  the 
old  house  still.  A  new  theology  which  breaks  with 
the  past  never  succeeds  in  establishing  itself.  God 
is  too  orderly,  His  method  of  self-revelation  is  too 
continuous,  His  leading  of  the  mind  by  steady  pro¬ 
gression  is  too  settled  to  admit  of  revolutions. 
Evolution  is  His  way.  When  therefore  any  one  pro¬ 
poses  to  offer  us  a  brand-new  theology,  in  glittering 
and  derisive  antagonism  to  the  old,  we  miss  the 
Divine  note  in  the  offer ;  we  know  the  thing  will  not 
prosper. 

We  remember  that  ingenious  person  who  ap¬ 
proached  Talleyrand  with  the  complaint  that  he  had 
a  brand-new  religion,  much  better  than  the  old,  but  he 
could  not  induce  people  to  accept  it.  What  should 
he  do  ?  “  Be  crucified,  and  rise  again  the  third  day,” 

was  the  sagacious  answer.  We  may  surmise  that 
no  new  theology  will  successfully  establish  itself 
which  breaks  with  Him  who  was  crucified  and  rose 
again  the  third  day.  The  new  theology  must  include 
and  develop  the  best  and  greatest  elements  in  the  old. 

In  the  search  for  a  new  theology  we  have  many 
advantages.  We  are  firmly  persuaded  of  the  induc¬ 
tive  method  of  inquiry  as  the  best  and  the  only 
valid  way.  A  theologian  of  the  past  generation 
would  start  out  with  the  cheerful  assurance  that 


234 


GREAT  ISSUES 


theology  was  a  subject  confined  within  definite 
limits.  If  he  was  a  Catholic  he  had  only  to  interpret 
the  creeds,  the  encyclicals,  the  infallible  utterances  of 
the  Church,  to  exhibit  what  the  Church  teaches, 
and  there  was  the  theology  complete  and  authorita¬ 
tive.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  a  Protestant, 
since  “the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  alone,  is  the  religion 
of  Protestants,”  his  only  task  was  to  arrange  the 
Scripture  texts  in  an  orderly  system,  and  there  was 
his  theology,  definite  and  decisive,  more  compact  and 
more  authoritative  than  the  theology  of  the  Catholic 
Church  itself. 

It  has  been  complained  that  the  theologies  pro¬ 
duced  in  this  way  are  dull.  They  must  necessarily 
be  so.  They  are  mechanical,  formal,  completely 
out  of  touch  with  life,  with  fact,  with  knowledge. 
Thomas  Aquinas  or  John  Calvin  can  be  read  with 
pleasure,  because  they  were  men  of  genius  and 
masters  of  literary  style.  But  their  theologies,  the 
one  a  deductive  system  from  the  Papal  Church,  the 
other  a  deductive  system  from  an  infallible  Bible, 
cannot  possibly  grip  the  modern  mind.  Their 
logical  cogency,  as  deductions  from  the  premisses, 
is  admirable  and  fascinating,  but  the  premisses, 
unless  granted,  cannot  be  established.  And  all 
our  knowledge,  our  conscience,  our  moral  develop¬ 
ment,  our  intelligence  dispute,  and  will  always 
dispute,  the  validity  of  those  premisses. 

The  theologian  of  to-day  will  not  think  of  walking 
this  “high  priori ”  road.  He  will  not  dream  of 


THEOLOGY 


235 


admitting  papal  infallibility  as  the  bar  to  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  God;  nor  will  he  start  with  the  Bible  as  the 
hortus  inclusus ,  from  which  his  discoveries  are  to  be 
derived.  The  modernist  spirit  has  discredited  those 
fatal  fountain-heads  of  dulness,  unproved  and  un¬ 
questioned  authorities,  endowed  beforehand  with 
infallibility,  so  that  that  quality  may  flow  into  the 
remotest  deductions  drawn  from  them. 

The  interest  is  returning  to  theology,  the  charm 
of  the  pursuit  begins  to  captivate  ardent  minds  again, 
because  we  no  longer  start  from  the  Creeds,  from 
the  Bible,  from  the  Church,  but  from  premisses 
which  are  verified  or  verifiable.  The  Creeds,  the 
Bible,  and  the  Church  must  find  their  place  and  their 
justification  in  the  advancing  inquiry:  we  may 
arrive  at  them,  and  may  find  them  justified,  but  they 
do  not  impose  their  authority  on  our  theology.  On 
the  contrary,  the  theology  revives  the  authority  in 
them  which  had  decayed  and  was  passing  away. 

Now,  what  are  the  assured  premisses  from  which 
the  theologian  starts  to-day  ?  What  is  it  that  affords 
hope  of  a  new  theology  which  can  grip  and  hold  the 
modern  mind?  We  start  now,  as  St.  Paul  suggests 
in  Rom.  i.,  from  the  known.  “The  invisible  things 
of  Him  since  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly 
seen,  being  perceived  through  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  His  everlasting  power  and  divinity.” 
Our  first  conception  of  God  is  that  of  the  Maker  of 
this  mystic  frame.  That  wild  spirit  of  revolt  the 
late  Professor  Clifford  was,  though  he  was  not  recog- 


236 


GREAT  ISSUES 


nized  at  the  time,  the  herald  of  a  new  theology.  He 
believed  that  Cosmic  emotion  would  take  the  place 
of  religion;  the  thrill  and  awe  of  the  universe,  as 
its  wonders  and  powers  are  unveiled  to  the  inquirer, 
will  be  the  worship  of  God. 

Here  is  the  first  guarantee  of  a  theology  which 
will  be  real  and  vital,  and  therefore  interesting. 
There  is  a  second  guarantee  in  the  modern  interest 
in  psychology.  The  human  mind  is  explored:  its 
aspirations,  and  faiths,  and  experiences  furnish  a 
rich  and  verifiable  material.  In  the  human  mind 
is  the  idea  of  God,  the  search  for  Him,  the  discovery 
of  Him.  Here  is  a  fruitful  field  of  inquiry.  What 
is  the  Being  that  is  discovered  there  in  the  soul’s 
depths?  What  is  the  experience  which  the  soul 
has  of  the  Being  with  which  it  is  in  contact  ? 

Now,  the  modern  theologian  moves  along  these 
two  assured  lines  of  inquiry.  There  are  two  worlds, 
but  they  are  correlated  and  indivisible.  There  is 
the  world  of  phenomena,  the  world  which  science 
explores  and  reveals;  and  there  is  the  world  of  the 
investigating  and  discovering  mind.  We  are  bent 
on  finding  the  Being  who  is  the  Author  of  these  two 
worlds;  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  Being  is  One; 
for  to  suppose  that  the  two  worlds  are  out  of  rela¬ 
tion,  and  that  they  spring  from  different  causes,  is 
to  make  all  inquiry  futile  and  all  discovery  mean¬ 
ingless. 

Our  theology  will  be  the  best  and  most  demon¬ 
strable  account  we  can  obtain  of  that  Being  which 


THEOLOGY 


2  37 


is  at  once  the  cause  of  the  universe  as  we  know  it 
and  of  us  who  know  it,  the  cause  of  the  intelligible 
and  of  the  intelligence.  We  start  with  the  known, 
with  the  world  we  know,  and  with  ourselves  who 
know,  not  divided,  for,  to  us,  they  have  no  exist¬ 
ence  apart.  Here  is  an  intelligible,  a  rational  uni¬ 
verse,  and  here  am  I  exploring  it,  living  in  it,  and  yet 
over  against  it,  related  to  it  as  subject  to  object. 
This  whole,  given  in  experience,  which  by  abstrac¬ 
tion  may  be  conceived  of  as  apart  from  me,  self¬ 
existence,  but  in  introspection  appears  only  as  the 
sum  total  of  my  perceptions  and  conceptions,  and 
therefore  in  a  sense  existent  only  in  my  knowledge 
of  it  —  this  whole,  of  subject  and  object  combined, 
exists.  What  is  the  cause  of  it,  what  the  purpose  of 
it?  Granted  that  the  name  we  give  to  the  cause 
and  the  purpose  is  God,  what  is  God?  what  is 
known  of  Him?  what  relation  have  we  with  Him? 

We  start  straight  away  from  the  facts  which  are 
before  us,  the  most  indisputable  facts  within  our 
reach,  facts  which  are  certain,  or  certainty  can  be 
predicated  of  nothing.  We  start  with  ourselves  and 
the  universe,  and  we  endeavour  to  answer  the  ques¬ 
tion,  If  God  is  the  Purpose  and  Cause  of  all,  what 
or  who  is  God  ? 

The  best  thought  of  our  time  recognizes  that 
the  only  explanation  of  a  universe  is  intelligence. 
There  would  be  no  order  or  cohesion,  no  uniformity 
on  which  scientific  conclusions  could  be  built,  no 
intelligible  system,  unless  the  whole  were  the  outcome 


238 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  intelligence.  The  informing  mind  of  things  is 
not  our  mind,  nor  the  sum  of  human  minds.  It 
preceded  them  and  produced  them.  The  discovery 
of  a  law  of  evolution  running  through  things  does  not 
dispense  with,  but  only  serves  to  exhibit,  the  mind. 
Those  minute  adaptations  of  means  to  ends  in  Nature, 
interesting  and  important  as  they  are,  were  far  too 
narrow  a  basis  for  the  teleological  argument.  It  is 
not  that  in  Nature  innumerable  instances  may  be 
discovered  in  which  a  purpose  is  betrayed,  but  it  is 
that  the  whole  of  Nature,  in  sum  and  in  detail,  be¬ 
trays  a  purpose.  Millions  of  years  ago  the  coal 
measures  were  stored,  the  continents  formed,  the 
seas  shut  within  their  limits,  the  atmosphere  thrown 
round  the  globe.  An  abode  for  life,  for  human  life, 
was  prepared.  In  every  part  of  this  abode,  which  is 
open  to  our  examination,  there  is  an  Intelligence 
at  work,  which  makes  the  life  that  is  produced 
possible,  which  sustains  with  food  the  living  crea¬ 
ture,  and  maintains,  not  only  the  comfort,  but  the 
beauty  of  the  dwelling.  This  intelligence  is  in  the 
mosses  which  clothe  the  hoary  rocks  with  filigree 
of  porphyry,  and  in  the  obscure  worms  that  by  their 
ploughing  give  to  the  soil  its  fruitfulness.  We  find 
no  point,  whether  in  the  galaxy  or  in  the  electrons 
which  form  the  atoms,  where  the  Intelligence  is  not 
at  work.  In  the  standing  miracle  of  our  own  bodies, 
with  their  complicated  arrangements  and  adjust¬ 
ments,  we  carry  about  with  us  an  exhibition,  directly 
we  come  to  reflect,  of  an  Intelligence,  far  other  than 


THEOLOGY 


239 


our  own,  which  gives  us  life  and  being.  Behind  all 
particular  wonders  which  open  as  we  investigate  and 
reflect  there  is  the  supreme  wonder  of  the  Being 
which  produces  and  orders  all,  .the  Mind,  which  is 
to  our  mind  as  the  universe  is  to  our  body.  The 
Anima  Mundi  is  not  outside,  but  within  the  world. 
It  is  in  the  world  as  the  life  is  in  our  body.  The 
Being  we  are  ever  in  search  of  is  immanent. 

“The  direction  is  from  within ,  the  Cosmos  was 
already  in  the  nebula,  there  never  was  any  chaos 
at  all,  there  is  nothing  in  the  end  which  was  not  also 
in  the  beginning.  And  if  you  like  to  add,  ‘In  the 
beginning  was  the  Logos,’  science  has  no  word  to 
say  against  it.”  1 

God,  then,  to  the  modern  mind  is  much  nearer 
than  He  used  to  seem.  He  is  in  the  heavens,  but 
not  exclusively  there.  He  is  in  the  earth  just  as  much 
as  He  is  in  the  heavens.  He  is  in  us  as  much  as  He 
is  in  the  intelligences  which  piety  placed  about  His 
distant  throne.  In  Him  we  live  and  move,  and  have 
our  being.  Novalis  felt  that  in  touching  a  human 
body  he  touched  God.  By  God  we  now  all  mean  a 
Being  — 

“.  .  .  far  more  deeply  interfused, 

Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 

And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 

And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ” 

The  starting-point  of  our  theology  is  the  immanent 
God. 

1  Prof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  “The  Bible  of  Nature,”  p.  88. 


240 


GREAT  ISSUES 


We  are  thus  led  to  move  out  from  our  own  minds 
which  afford  us  our  most  certain  knowledge  to  the 
knowledge  of  God,  whom  once  men  described  as 
the  Unknown.  We  are  not  now  alarmed  by  the 
inane  charge  of  anthropomorphism.  We  almost 
smile  at  the  crudity  of  the  judgments  in  the  last 
generation,  as,  for  example,  that  while  the  Bible 
declares  man  to  be  made  in  the  image  of  God,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  God  is  made  in  the  image  of  man. 
How  completely  has  the  standpoint  shifted !  We 
do  not  make  God  in  our  own  image,  but  our  own 
image,  or  personality,  is  the  mirror  in  which  He  is 
reflected.  Nay  more,  our  consciousness  is  God 
welling  up  within  us.  The  mind  of  the  world 
emerges  in  our  finite  minds,  not  affirming  that  our 
finite  minds  contain  the  Infinite,  but  showing  that 
they  are  or  should  be  in  contact  with  the  Infinite. 
We  do  not  make  God  in  our  own  image,  but  in  our 
image  we  are  on  the  sure  tracks  of  finding  and  know¬ 
ing  Him. 

When  Hume  and  Mill  dissolved  causality  into 
a  mere  unvarying  sequence,  and  tried  to  make  us 
believe  that  by  a  cause  we  meant  only  an  antecedent 
which  was  followed  by  a  consequent,  they  did  an 
unconscious  service  to  our  theology,  for  they  led  us 
to  see  how  definite  the  idea  of  cause  is,  and  how 
totally  distinct  from  what  they  would  have  it  to  be. 
They  prepared  us  for  the  capital  discovery  of  modern 
psychology,  that  the  idea  of  causation  comes  from 
the  fact  that  we  are  ourselves  causes.  Our  will  is 


THEOLOGY 


241 


the  fundamental  fact  in  our  experience  through  which 
we  interpret  everything  else.  We  are,  therefore, 
depending  as  we  must  on  our  own  personality, 
obliged  to  conclude  that  what  is  not  caused  by  our¬ 
selves,  by  the  sum  total  of  human  wills,  including 
ourselves,  is  caused  by  will  not  ourselves.  The 
intelligence  of  the  universe  is  will,  and  one  will, 
otherwise  there  would  be  only  a  multiverse ;  and  will 
is  of  course  personal,  not  necessarily  limited,  as  our 
own  personality  is,  but,  considering  the  vastness  and 
complexity  of  the  stupendous  whole,  more  properly 
described  as  infinite. 

We  conclude,  with  a  confidence  which  grows 
with  every  further  effort  of  thought  and  every  exten¬ 
sion  of  knowledge,  that  the  Cause  of  all  things  is  an 
infinite  Personality,  a  Will,  an  Intelligence  —  God. 

At  this  point  in  our  search  we  are  Pantheists. 
God  is  the  indwelling  Reason,  or  Logos,  that  makes 
the  whole.  God  is  in  the  world  what  the  soul  is  in 
the  body.  But  here,  in  the  investigation  of  our  own 
personality,  which  is  the  one  clue  we  have  for  the 
discovery  of  God,  we  light  upon  the  fact  of  conscience. 
What  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  is  a  matter  for 
ethical  research,  and  the  idea  of  right  and  wrong  must 
grow  with  the  growth  of  the  human  organism,  or 
society;  we  find,  and  are  likely  to  find,  in  that  no 
finality.  But  what  is  fundamental  and  invariable 
is  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  as  such. 
We  are  all  far  too  definitely  aware  of  seeing  the  better 
and  approving  it,  and  yet  following  the  worse,  to 

R 


242 


GREAT  ISSUES 


admit  of  any  question  on  this  point.  And  in  this 
factor  of  the  soul,  the  ethical,  we  gradually  learn 
to  recognize  that  the  good  is  what  agrees  with  God 
and  the  bad  is  what  does  not.  We  escape  Pantheism 
through  the  door  of  the  moral  sense.  The  escape, 
as  we  saw  in  the  chapter  on  Morality,  is  only  gradual 
and  imperfect,  but  it  is  sure.  If  we  may  say  so, 
God,  in  spite  of  our  reluctance,  ultimately  makes 
it  plain.  God  is  the  author  of  everything  except 
evil;  God  is  in  everything  except  the  resistance  to 
good.  Slowly  we  make  the  capital  discovery  that 
evil  is  the  resistance  to  God  in  our  own  or  other 
wills,  but  that  good  is  God. 

If  the  fact  of  sin  is  neglected  or  slurred  over, 
thought  swiftly  relapses  into  Pantheism.  But  that 
fact  is  so  palpable,  and  emerges  so  definitely  and 
necessarily  from  the  moral  nature  which  is  our¬ 
selves,  that  Pantheism  is  sure  of  ultimate  refutation. 
Thus  the  soul  leads  to  God,  the  infinite  Intelligence 
and  Will  that  produced  and  sustains  all  things; 
but  sin  leads  to  the  discovery  of  a  Holy  God,  whose 
will  is  thwarted  in  our  finite  limitations  and  perverse 
resistance.  To  be  rid  of  sin,  to  come  back  into  per¬ 
fect  and  conscious  harmony  with  the  will  that  is 
holy,  must  be  the  one  aim  and  struggle  of  religion. 

Here  what  is  called  natural  theology  comes  to  a 
stand.  It  does  not  appear  how  we  can  ever  draw 
our  foot  out  of  the  flux  of  things  and  arrive  at  any 
firm  standing  ground,  how  we  can  distinguish  be¬ 
tween  the  Holy  God  that  is  infinite  and  our  finitude 


THEOLOGY 


243 


which  resists  Him,  unless  God,  the  Holy  One,  the 
Infinite  Being,  communicates  with  us,  and  defines, 
unless  He  shows  us  Himself  over  against  us,  as  the 
Holy  over  against  the  unholy,  and  yet  as  the  Holy 
bent  on  making  us  holy,  by  reconciling  us  to  Himself. 

Here,  then,  we  come  to  a  stay  in  theology,  or  we 
become  Christian.  As  Christianity  enters  into  our 
theology  a  new  vista  opens  out;  much  may  be  dis¬ 
covered  that  seemed  beyond  our  reach.  Theology 
must  turn  aside  to  establish  the  proofs  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  a  whole  discipline  of  apologetics  develops 
itself,  reasons  are  given  for  believing  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  a  revelation  of  God,  not  merely  the  human 
speculation  about  God,  but  God’s  own  self-commu¬ 
nication  to  man.  The  growth  and  preparation  of 
the  Christian  truth  are  traced  embryonically  in  the 
religion  of  Israel.  The  coming  of  Christ  is  estab¬ 
lished  historically.  His  life  and  teaching  are 
studied.  His  cross  and  resurrection  and  ascension 
are  recognized  as  the  starting-point  of  an  evangel. 
The  New  Testament  writings  are  examined  as  the 
foundation  of  a  new  theology  which  results  from 
these  facts.  Into  all  this  we  cannot  enter.  But, 
assuming  that  theology  has  now  become  Christian, 
we  go  on  to  tread  the  opening  vista,  and  to  make  the 
fresh  and  rational  discoveries. 

The  most  general  and  illuminating  dogma  of  the 
Christian  revelation  is  that  the  Logos  —  the  reason 
in  the  whole  Cosmos,  the  cause  of  the  Cosmos,  the 
sustaining  principle  of  the  universe  —  the  reason 


244 


GREAT  ISSUES 


which  is  in  God,  and,  indeed,  is  God,  which  was  in 
God  and  was  God,  from  the  beginning,  was  incarnate 
in  Christ.  This  is  the  dogma  which  must  either  be 
believed  or  rejected.  Only  if  it  is  believed  on  in  the 
world  does  it  become  the  light  of  the  world. 

We  assume  that  it  is  believed,  we  take  our  stand 
with  those  who  believe  it  and  proceed  to  trace  out  the 
theology  of  the  Incarnation. 

The  first  and  the  last,  the  alpha  and  the  omega, 
of  Christianity,  considered  as  a  revelation,  is  that  it 
establishes  the  simple  proposition,  God  is  love.  It 
makes  clearer  than  ever  before  that  God  is  good. 
It  identifies  goodness  with  God  in  such  a  way  that 
evil  is  shown  to  be  in  radical  opposition  to  Him,  and 
He  is  seen  to  be  the  declared  foe  of  it.  That  emerges 
from  the  teaching  of  Christ,  from  His  Person,  and, 
above  all,  from  the  Cross,  for  there  the  evil  in  the 
world  assails  with  malignant  fury  the  incarnate  Good, 
and  overwhelms  it  with  anguish,  shame,  and  death. 

But  much  more  remarkable  than  the  demonstra¬ 
tion  that  God  is  good  is  the  argument  which  shows 
that  He  is  love.  Christ  asserts  it  on  the  ground  of  His 
own  intuitive  and  eternal  knowledge  of  God;  He 
manifests  it  by  His  own  character  and  conduct  as  the 
expression  in  human  life  of  God’s  Spirit  and  nature; 
making  no  compromise  with  evil,  He  yet  loves  human 
beings  that  are  stained  with  sin  and  sunk  in  guilt; 
but,  above  all,  in  the  cross  He  dies  to  deliver  men 
from  evil ;  He  bears  the  sin  of  the  world  in  His  body 
on  the  tree;  God  in  Christ  is  seen  as  self-sacrificing 


THEOLOGY  245 

love,  which  suffers  even  the  death  of  the  cross  in  the 
love  that  would  save  the  world. 

The  argument  by  which  Christianity  establishes 
its  capital  conclusion,  that  God  is  love,  is  cumulative, 
and  grows  in  strength  with  every  fresh  understand¬ 
ing  of  the  sources  and  every  deepening  experience 
of  life.  Into  our  theology  has  come  the  most  illu¬ 
minating  and  the  most  pregnant  idea. 

Let  us  pause  to  get  this  into  line  with  the  truth 
of  God  which  we  reached,  or  might  have  reached, 
apart  from  Christianity,  and  then  let  us  mark  the 
lines  of  thought  which  radiate  from  the  central 
truth. 

The  immanent  reason  in  things,  the  soul  of  the 
world,  that  Intelligence  which  contrives  and  that 
Will  which  executes  the  whole,  God,  is  holy  love. 
In  the  forum  of  the  conscience,  where  the  eternal 
pleading  proceeds  between  right  and  wrong,  He  is  on 
the  tribunal  uniformly  deciding  for  the  right.  But 
in  the  chambers  of  the  heart,  where  love  and  selfish¬ 
ness  are  at  eternal  feud,  He  is  the  love.  He  has 
produced  a  universe  which  admits  of  something 
alien  from  Himself,  but  only  in  order  that  the  alien 
may  return  to  Him  in  deliberate  and  convinced 
devotion.  He  will  ever  devise  means  that  His  ban¬ 
ished  may  return.  While,  therefore,  the  concrete 
world  of  our  human  existence  appears  to  traverse 
the  idea  that  God  is  love,  or  at  any  rate  to  suggest 
that,  if  He  is  love,  His  power  is  limited,  the  clue  that 
we  have  obtained  leads  us  to  the  correction  of  this 


246 


GREAT  ISSUES 


impression.  The  impression  is  due  to  the  eyes  on 
which  it  is  made,  the  eyes  of  human  beings  that, 
being  out  of  harmony  with  God,  see  things  in  the 
distortion  of  their  own  lovelessness  and  resistance  to 
Him. 

All  through  the  world,  rightly  understood,  runs 
the  principle  of  love,  the  principle  which  is  God. 
The  power  is  recognized  by  science,  the  love  by 
theology.  And  yet  when  it  is  recognized,  science 
itself  confirms  the  conclusion.  Drummond,  as  we 
saw,  in  his  “  Ascent  of  Man/’  brought  evolution  and 
the  struggle  for  existence,  with  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  to  show  that  love  ran  through  it  all;  for  the 
struggle  for  the  life  of  others,  with  its  attendant 
sacrifices,  is  the  concomitant  of  all  the  apparent 
struggle  of  egotism.  Such  unlikely  writers  as  Prince 
Kropotkin  and  Karl  Pearson  are  the  witnesses  of  the 
truth  which  theology  establishes.  The  former,  in 
his  “Mutual  Aid,”  traces  the  principle  of  co-oper¬ 
ation,  of  love,  running  all  through  the  animal  world 
and  the  earliest  communal  arrangements  of  mankind. 
The  Divine  element  in  our  humanity  is  illustrated 
by  a  fact  mentioned  in  a  note.1  A  prisoner  escaped 
from  a  French  prison.  He  managed  to  conceal 
himself,  though  the  hue  and  cry  were  up  against  him. 
Lying  in  a  ditch,  he  saw  a  fire  break  out  in  a  village, 
and  heard  a  woman  cry  to  some  one  to  save  her  child 
in  the  upper  story.  But  no  one  responded.  The 
prisoner’s  humanity  made  him  forget  his  personal 
1  “Mutual  Aid,”  by  Prince  Kropotkin,  p.  278. 


THEOLOGY 


247 


danger.  He  dashed  out,  made  his  way  through  the 
fire,  and  with  scalded  face  and  burning  clothes 
presented  the  rescued  child  to  the  agonized  mother. 
The  prisoner  was  thus  arrested  and  restored  to  prison. 
Humanity  is  drenched  with  love,  the  love  that  sac¬ 
rifices,  the  love  that  saves.  The  fierce  competition 
of  the  modern  world,  thinks  the  Prince,  is  due  to 
a  mistaken  doctrine ;  it  fancies  itself  a  law  of  nature. 
Darwinism,  a  great  half-truth,  has  dominated  the 
world ;  it  was  thought  that  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  were  the  secret  of  the 
universe.  The  hungry  generations  tread  each  other 
down  with  the  heroic  thought  that  they  are  co-oper¬ 
ating  with  Nature,  that  great  power  which,  for  the 
modern  mind,  replaces  God. 

But  the  other  half  of  the  truth  must  be  brought 
out  —  nay,  more  than  half,  the  whole  truth  which 
dominates  the  fragment  called  “struggle  for  exist¬ 
ence.”  As  Karl  Pearson,  the  other  writer  referred 
to,  says,  the  struggle  as  we  see  it  is  rather  the  struggle 
of  nations  than  of  individuals,  and  for  that,  co-opera¬ 
tion  and  mutual  aid  within  the  nation  are  absolutely 
necessary.  For  the  moment,  the  aspect  of  the  world 
is  a  solidarity  of  mutual  life  under  the  name  of  nation¬ 
alism,  supported  by  patriotism,  involving  antago¬ 
nism  and  suspicion  between  nations;  but  presently 
nation  will  learn  to  help  nation,  as  man  helps  man, 
the  area  of  patriotism  will  be  humanity,  and  the 
united  struggle  of  mankind  will  be  to  dominate  the 
forces  of  Nature  and  to  provide  for  the  welfare  of  each 


248 


GREAT  ISSUES 


human  unit.  That  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  con¬ 
ceived  by  Jesus  Christ. 

Even  men  who  do  not  recognize  God  are  thus  dis¬ 
covering  the  neglected  factor  in  the  being  of  God, 
the  truth  which  it  was  the  object  of  Christianity  to 
supply. 

“From  the  first  Power  was,  I  knew, 

Life  has  made  clear  to  me, 

That,  strive  but  for  closer  view, 

Love  were  as  plain  to  see. 

When  see?  When  there  dawns  a  day, 

If  not  on  the  homely  earth, 

Then  yonder  worlds  away, 

When  the  strange  and  new  have  birth, 

And  power  comes  full  in  play.” 

But  if  a  Christian  theology  has  enabled  us  to  appre¬ 
hend  the  love  that  runs  through  things,  and  to  find 
in  love  the  ultimate  principle  of  the  world  and  of  life, 
it  will  push  on  to  further  conquests,  until  it  trans¬ 
forms  all  other  theologies  and  realizes  that  triumph 
of  love  which  is  involved  in  the  conception  that  God 
is  love,  for  God  must  be  all  in  all. 

When  we  have  learnt  to  detach  certain  principles 
from  the  whole  and  to  identify  them  with  God,  so 
that  we  are  no  longer  under  the  paralyzing  spell  of 
Pantheism,  we  have  a  clue  which  leads  us  to  a  totally 
new  conception  of  the  world  and  to  a  fruitful  prac- 
tique.  When  once  the  clue  is  grasped  it  is  wonder¬ 
ful,  as  the  modern  mind  begins  to  see,  how  good  and 
gracious  the  universe  is;  the  warring  influence  is 
found  to  be  in  ourselves,  in  our  jaundiced  minds  and 


THEOLOGY 


249 


warped  views,  and  the  practical  life  resulting  there¬ 
from.  “Strive  but  for  closer  view,”  get  the  survey 
of  the  universe  which  we  may  reverently  call  Christ’s, 
and  what  do  we  see  ?  There  is  the  beneficent  Father 
of  men,  God,  making  and  maintaining  His  human 
family  in  a  world  which  is  an  abode  for  them,  mar¬ 
vellously  constructed  and  adapted.  His  impartial 
benevolence  gives  life,  and  food,  and  opportunity 
to  all.  His  sun  rises  on  the  good  and  on  the  bad. 
The  sufferings  and  limitations  of  the  creature  are 
vastly  overbalanced  by  the  joys  and  delights.  The 
balance  of  pleasure  over  pain  is  incalculably  great. 
The  pain  is  a  spur  to  higher  good.  It  makes  char¬ 
acter,  it  elicits  help,  human  benevolence.  The 
greatest  and  best  in  human  life  is  the  Cross  by  which 
it  is  redeemed. 

It  is  no  lazy  optimism  which  reaches  a  conclusion 
of  this  kind,  but  rather  a  frank  and  full  survey  of  the 
facts  of  human  existence,  released  from  the  warping 
view  of  the  mind  in  a  morbid  or  perverted  state. 
The  theory  that  God  is  love  brings  out  a  world  of 
love,  where  much  seemed  forbidding  and  perplex¬ 
ing,  as  a  burst  of  April  sunshine  suddenly  shows 
an  earth  beautiful  with  promise  and ,  a  blue  sky 
bending  over  it  in  tenderness.  This  transformed 
earth  is  the  real  earth,  and  lasts  just  so  long  as  we 
maintain  the  illuminating  sun,  the  love  of  God. 

There  is  a  tendency  to-day  to  regard  God  as  the 
author  of  good  and  evil,  and  even  to  imagine  that 
God  suffers  the  evil  with  us,  and  is  battling  against 


250 


GREAT  ISSUES 


it  as  we  do.1  This  kind  of  Pantheism  secures  unity 
at  too  great  a  price.  It  is  better  to  rest  in  an  unex¬ 
plained  dualism  than  to  compress  the  contradictory 
facts  into  a  forced  monism.  Whatever  may  be  the 
explanation  or  the  origin  of  evil,  for  practical  pur¬ 
poses  —  and  it  is  only  for  such  purposes  that  theology 
is  of  any  use  —  we  get  the  best  point  of  view  by 
maintaining  absolutely  that  God  is  good,  and  nothing 
but  good,  love  and  nothing  but  love.  Whatever  is 
counter  to  good  or  to  love  is  not  God,  but  the  obstacle 
which  God  is  overcoming,  and  will  some  day  com¬ 
pletely  overcome.  We  take  our  part,  however 
small,  in  His  victory  in  proportion  as  we  succeed 
in  realizing  and  in  bringing  to  bear  on  the  facts  of 
experience  the  unflecked  purity,  the  unmodified 
goodness,  the  mastering  love  that  is  God.  Omnia 
vincit  amor. 

The  Christianity  of  to-day  is  as  yet  only  half- 
developed.  It  is  far  too  precious  a  truth  to  surrender. 
Its  theology  is  far  too  original  and  valuable  to  admit 
of  being  superseded.  We  cannot  give  up  our  theo¬ 
logy  in  order  to  become  philanthropists,  for  it  is  not 
shown  that  we  can  love  men  consistently  and  re- 
demptively  except  by  faith  in  God  who  loves.  But 
the  Christian  truth  must  push  on  to  its  conclusion, 
and  the  theology  must  be  recast  to  express  the 
rounded  whole.  The  half-development,  broadly 
speaking,  insisted  that  we  should  personalize  God, 
and  Satan,  and  should  dwell  on  the  two  as  opposing 

1  “The  Living  Word,”  by  Ellwood  Worcester. 


THEOLOGY 


25* 


forces.  Whether  it  was  an  echo  of  Zoroastrianism, 
or  simply  a  reflection  of  the  stubborn  facts  of  the 
world,  a  dualism  resulted,  and  we  had  our  Ormuzd 
and  Ahriman,  two  contending  world-powers,  and 
the  victory  hanging  in  the  balance.  No  one  can  deny 
that  this  dualism  is  reflected  in  the  Bible,  and  that 
Christianity  in  its  early  stages  accepted  it.  But 
Christianity,  fully  developed,  cannot  admit  this  kind 
of  dualism.  It  turns  wholly  from  the  darkness 
towards  the  light ;  it  does  not  spend  its  strength  in 
personalizing  God  and  Satan,  but  it  devotes  all  its 
strength,  its  mind,  its  heart,  to  personalizing  God  and 
loving  Him.  It  conceives  the  task  of  religion  to  be 
the  realization  of  the  living  God,  who  is  truth  and 
love  and  goodness,  as  omnipresent,  mastering  evil 
of  all  kinds.  The  Christian  is  one  who  sides  only 
with  God,  with  truth  and  love  and  goodness,  and  so 
resists  the  devil  that  the  devil  flees  and  fades  into 
thin  air.  Christ’s  way  of  putting  it,  a  picturesque 
and  forcible  way,  was  that  the  prince  of  this  world 
came  and  found  nothing  in  Him.  So  He  would 
have  it  be  with  His  followers.  The  prince  of  this 
world,  the  Satan  of  the  Dark  Ages,  should  find 
nothing  in  us,  not  even  the  image,  or  the  terror,  of 
him.  Love  should  have  driven  out  fear,  and  light 
darkness. 

But  is  it  not  a  tour  de  force ,  a  will  to  believe  carried 
to  the  excess  of  blindness?  Is  it  not  making  God 
what  we  desire,  and  insisting  that  He  is,  because  we 
have  formed  this  idea  of  Him  ?  Does  it  not  involve 


252 


GREAT  ISSUES 


shutting  our  eyes  to  many  of  the  most  obvious  and 
certain  facts  of  life,  and  wrapping  ourselves  in  an 
optimistic  illusion  ?  The  answer  is,  No !  We  are 
driven  along  a  line  of  rational  argument  to  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  what  God  is.  Surely,  then,  we  are  bound 
to  side  with  God  against  what  He  opposes.  We 
cannot  stand  disputing  how  these  His  enemies  be¬ 
came  His  enemies,  or  how  these  facts  of  concrete 
experience  fell  out  of  harmony  with  His  will  ?  That 
course  of  conduct  is  intelligible  if  we  are  not  convinced 
what  God  is,  what  He  must  be.  But  the  Christian 
is  convinced.  God  in  Christ  is  truth  and  goodness 
and  love,  nothing  else,  in  spite  of  all  appearances, 
that  and  that  alone.  Into  that  scale,  therefore,  as 
essentially  the  winning  side,  the  Christian  throws  his 
whole  weight.  He,  too,  will  be  truth,  and  arise  to 
smite  the  lies  which  vex  the  labouring  earth.  He,  too, 
will  be  goodness,  and  flame  with  a  steady  fire  against 
all  that  is  not  good.  He,  too,  will  be  love,  vanquish¬ 
ing  hate  in  all  its  forms,  not  by  hating,  but  by  loving. 
When  the  objection  is  made:  But  look  at  the  sin 
and  suffering  of  the  earth,  the  irrational  calamities 
which  overwhelm  the  good,  the  cruelty  of  man  to 
man,  the  moral  evil  which  persists  and  frequently 
triumphs;  how  can  there  be  a  good,  an  all-powerful 
God?  his  answer  is  unhesitating:  There  is  a  good 
and  all-powerful  God,  and  therefore  I  trust  Him 
where  I  cannot  see,  and  I  go  out  with  Him  to  soothe, 
to  comfort,  and  to  save  the  world. 

But  if  the  objector  urges :  How  do  you  know  there 


THEOLOGY 


253 


is  such  a  God?  the  answer  comes,  and  it  is  surely 
irresistible:  If  I  groan  over  the  sin  and  the  sorrow 
of  the  world,  and  if  I  suffer  in  the  catastrophes  which 
crush  my  fellow-men,  what  right  have  I  to  think  that 
this  sympathy,  this  saving  sympathy,  is  my  creation  ? 
How  dare  I  suppose  that  there  is  in  me  a  virtue  which 
I  deny  to  the  Soul  of  the  World,  the  Creative  Intelli¬ 
gence,  God? 

Is  it  said :  That  is  reasoning  in  a  circle;  you  agree 
that  God  is  good  because  you  are,  and  then  that  you 
are  good  because  God  is?  Well,  in  matters  of  this 
kind  the  argument,  to  be  complete,  must  be  a  circle. 
The  circle  is  its  own  evidence.  For  who  can  deny 
that  it  is  good?  What  better  conclusion  can  faith 
or  practice  reach  than  this :  I  must  be  true  and  good 
and  loving,  because  God  is  truth,  goodness,  and  love  ? 
This  is  the  vision  of  our  desire,  the  self-evidencing 
reality  which  carries  conviction. 

“I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night 
Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light, 

All  calm  as  it  was  bright: 

And  round  beneath  it  Time,  in  hours,  days,  years, 
Driven  by  the  spheres, 

Like  a  vast  shadow  moved,  in  which  the  world 
And  all  her  train  were  hurled.” 

That  vision  is  the  true  theology. 

We  may,  then,  vindicate  the  name  of  theology 
as  queen  of  the  sciences,  understanding  by  it,  not 
that  theology  is  one  of  the  sciences,  but  that  it  is  a 
knowledge  or  a  discipline  which  must  explain  and 


254 


GREAT  ISSUES 


justify  the  sciences,  and  in  its  turn  be  justified  and 
recognized  by  them. 

This  knowledge  of  the  Cause  and  the  Purpose, 
to  which  science  as  such  cannot  attain,  is  as  neces¬ 
sary  as  anything  to  which  science  can  attain.  For  if 
God  is  not,  or  if  we  cannot  know  Him,  a  doubt  and 
a  fear  will  inevitably  steal  over  the  human  spirit, 
What  use  or  joy  or  satisfaction  can  there  be  in  any 
other  knowledge  ? 


CHAPTER  IX 


I ITERATURE 

Vita  sine  litteris  est  mors  was  a  saying  of  Robert¬ 
son,  the  Scottish  historian  —  “Life  without  litera¬ 
ture  is  death.”  But  a  sick  doubt  sometimes  steals 
over  the  world,  in  the  incredible  multiplication  of 
written  and  printed  matter,  whether  life  even  with 
literature  is  much  better.  When  books  were  few  and 
rare,  and  (despite  Bacon’s  pessimistic  view  that  the 
weighty  things  sink  in  the  stream  of  time  and  only 
the  driftwood  and  the  bubbles  and  the  froth  are 
carried  down  on  its  bosom)  only  those  that  were  of 
weight  survived,  when  a  newspaper  was  an  event, 
and  even  letters  were  written  with  care  as  if  for  pos¬ 
terity,  the  student  in  his  library  might  easily  feel  that 
he  breathed  the  air  of  the  immortals  and  conversed 
with  the  good  and  great  of  all  time.  Such  a  commerce 
with  what  is  noble  in  literature  was  a  finer  life;  to  be 
deprived  of  it  would  naturally  seem  to  be  death.  But 
when  the  flood  of  written  and  printed  matter  assumes 
vast  proportions,  when  the  ephemeral  writing  of  the 
day,  in  papers  or  books,  leaves  no  time  for  reference 
to  the  solemn  and  silent  monitors  upon  the  shelves, 
when  writing  is  a  trade  for  wresting  from  the  restless 

255 


GREAT  ISSUES 


256 

and  curious  mind  of  man  a  living,  and  journalism 
becomes  the  record  of  facts  which  do  not  happen  for 
the  benefit  of  minds  that  do  not  think,  then  literature, 
if  all  that  is  written  and  printed  is  to  assume  the 
venerable  name,  appears  as  a  muddy  and  defiling 
deluge,  in  which,  though  the  precious  products  of 
time  are  still  tossed  and  whirled,  the  mind  is  more 
likely  to  be  debauched  and  defiled  by  the  flood  than 
to  be  saved  by  the  treasures. 

Life  with  letters  is  a  death  for  the  unhappy  minds 
that  feed  upon  vanity,  for  children  who  use  the  art  of 
reading  to  debauch  their  spirits  with  sensational 
stories,  for  men  who  use  it  to  exasperate  the  fever 
of  gambling,  and  the  like.  None  but  a  pessimist 
would  say  that  a  cheap  press  means  more  evil  than 
good  to  the  world,  but  he  must  be  a  blind  optimist 
who  does  not  recognize  that  the  evil  goes  near  to 
balancing  the  good. 

Life  without  letters  is  death !  But  in  contrast 
with  the  city  population  feeding  on  the  garbage  of  the 
daily  press,  with  no  palate  for  any  writing  which  is 
not  spiced  with  lubricity,  or  malice,  or  sensational¬ 
ism,  consider  the  illiterate,  still  to  be  found  in  re¬ 
mote  and  quiet  places,  old  men  who  live  in  dumb 
contact  with  the  vital  earth,  or  the  still  more  vital 
heavens,  tossed  on  the  crisp  waves  of  the  sea, 
bronzed  with  the  weather,  hardy  with  the  han¬ 
dling  of  the  rope  or  of  the  spade.  These  illiterates 
are  at  least  in  presence  of  the  living  forces  of  Nature, 
and  know  the  solemnity  and  uplift  of  the  eternal 


LITERATURE 


257 


things.  They  read  in  the  legends  of  the  stones  and 
the  hedgerows  more  salutary  messages  than  the 
paragraphs  of  the  daily  press;  they  hear  in  the  twitter 
of  the  birds,  and  the  timid  rustle  of  earth’s  humbler 
progeny  beneath  the  grass,  the  word  of  God  which 
has  been  spoken  since  the  Creation.  The  doings 
of  the  cottage,  the  birth,  the  marriage,  and  the  burial, 
the  uneloquent  loves,  and  the  unrecorded  heroisms  of 
endurance,  are  a  better  script  than  the  fripperies  of 
popular  fiction,  and  the  scraps  which  take  the  place 
of  knowledge.  It  has  become,  therefore,  more  neces¬ 
sary  than  ever  to  discriminate  between  literature  and 
literature,  and,  if  possible,  to  retain  the  name  “litera¬ 
ture”  only  for  writing  which  has  a  certain  quality. 
If  we  could  give  to  literature  a  specific  and  legitimate 
meaning,  if  we  might  stamp  as  “illiterate”  all  who 
have  no  taste  for  real  literature,  all  who  wallow  by 
choice  in  the  writing  which  is  the  negation  of  real 
literature,  we  should  be  in  the  way  of  amendment. 

There  is  a  kind  of  human  swine,  unclean  feeders, 
that  eat  with  equal  relish  food  and  garbage.  Before 
them  the  pearls  are  cast  in  vain.1  Surely,  and  often 
quickly,  the  taste  becomes  morbid,  and,  like  those 
Africans  who  acquire  a  craving  to  eat  earth,  which  is 

1  What  the  literature  is  that  at  present  starves  the  souls  of  Lon¬ 
don  children  is  told  in  the  answer  made  by  one  of  the  boys  to 
the  question,  what  books  they  read  in  their  country  visit:  Chips , 
Comic  Cuts,  the  World's  Comic,  Funny  Cuts,  the  Funny  Wonder, 
Comic  Home  Journal.  (“Towards  Social  Reform,”  by  Canon 
Barnett.)  They  ought  to  grow  up  humourists,  but  they  do  not. 
The  comic  view  of  life  ends  in  tragedy. 


GREAT  ISSUES 


258 

ultimately  fatal,  they  eat  themselves  to  death  in  the 
noisome  realities  or  lewd  fancies  of  the  written  page. 
If  such  swine  might  be  rightly  stigmatized,  if  the 
line  of  distinction  might  be  drawn,  not  between  those 
who  read  and  those  who  do  not,  but  between  those 
who  read  cleanly  and  those  who  read  foully,  if  the 
illiterate  might  be  defined  as  persons  who  are  poi¬ 
soned  with  bad  writing,  and  cannot  therefore  under¬ 
stand  literature,  a  certain  guidance  might  be  given, 
at  any  rate  to  the  young.  He  shall  not  be  illiterate 
who  only  has  to  confess  that  he  must  put  his  mark 
to  a  name  written  for  him,  but  he  who,  to  everything 
written,  by  himself  or  others,  attaches  inevitably  the 
mark  of  the  beast.  For  him,  above  all,  life  without 
literature  is  death. 

It  is  curious  that  the  original  meaning  of  “  litera¬ 
ture”  in  our  language,  though  the  dictionary  now 
marks  it  as  rare  and  obsolescent ,  is  not  the  vast  un¬ 
sifted  mass  of  printed  or  written  matter,  but  polite 
or  humane  learning.  Thus  Swift  argues  that  the 
young  nobility  may  be  educated  “that  they  may  set 
out  into  the  world  with  some  foundation  of  litera¬ 
ture,”  and  Johnson  speaks  of  one  whose  “literature 
was  unquestionably  great.  He  read  all  the  languages 
which  are  considered  as  either  learned  or  polite.” 
This  meaning  just  survives;  for  example,  Mr. 
Howells  speaks  of  a  man  as  grotesquely  ignorant  — 
“He  was  a  man  of  very  small  literature.” 

Thus  the  word  started  well.  It  implied  discrimi¬ 
nation,  and  meant  culture.  It  was  by  a  profane 


LITERATURE 


259 


perversion  that  it  came  to  mean  anything  that  is 
written,  until  the  vulgar  and  misleading  posters 
which  a  political  party  issues  on  the  verge  of  an  elec¬ 
tion  are  designated  “  literature. ” 

But  the  coin  is  not  defaced  beyond  recognition, 
and  is,  perhaps,  even  now  in  process  of  re-minting. 
Thus  Buckle,  in  his  matter-of-fact  way,  was  on  the 
right  track  when  he  said:  “ Literature,  when  it  is 
in  a  healthy  and  unforced  state,  is  simply  the  form  in 
which  the  knowledge  of  a  country  is  registered.’ ’  But 
evidently  he  had  not  captured  the  right  definition. 
The  bills  of  mortality,  or  the  statistics  of  the  excise, 
are  a  form  in  which  the  knowledge  of  a  country  is 
registered,  but  we  hesitate  to  call  them  literature. 

The  realism  which  gives  the  minute  details  of  vice 
and  corruption  justifies  itself  by  claiming  to  “register 
the  knowledge  of  a  country,”  which  is,  it  is  argued, 
necessarily  a  knowledge  of  good  and  evil;  but  is  it  to 
rank  as  literature?  We  are  reaching  an  agreement 
that  literature  is  only  writing  of  a  certain  kind  or 
quality.  We  are  feeling  our  way  to  an  assured 
judgment  that  this  or  that  book  is  literature  or  is  not. 
But  what  is  the  punctum  discriminis  ?  In  the  absence 
of  an  Academy  of  Letters,  who  will  define  literature 
for  us  ?  Who  will  enable  us  to  sort  the  printed  matter 
into  two  great  heaps  —  literature  and  the  reverse  ? 
Who  will  cultivate  the  taste  for  the  one,  and  the 
distaste  for  the  other?  Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that 
no  hard-and-fast  line  may  be  drawn,  that  there  are 
approximations  to  the  imaginary  standard,  some 


260 


GREAT  ISSUES 


close,  some  more  distant,  and  it  is  impossible  to  say 
where  the  remoter  examples  shade  off  into  the  in¬ 
dubitably  unliterary.  Perhaps  there  are  writers  who 
sometimes  produce  literature  and  sometimes  do  not, 
so  that  our  task  may  be  ruined  by  a  bad  work  pro¬ 
ceeding  from  a  good  writer.  Or  it  may  be  argued 
that  in  one  work  there  are  parts,  passages,  sentences, 
which  deserve  the  name  of  literature,  while  the  rest 
does  not.  A  paragraph  in  a  newspaper,  an  effusion 
in  a  poet’s  corner,  may  deserve  the  cachet  of  the 
Academy  better  than  a  whole  volume  of  dull  and 
honest  prose,  or  of  mediocre  verse. 

The  difficulties  in  reaching  a  definition  are  ob¬ 
vious.  And  yet  a  standard  must  be  found.  If  we 
are  to  save  our  souls  in  the  vast  welter  of  publica¬ 
tions  in  which  we  float  or  are  submerged,  we  must 
have  a  criterium,  we  must  have  at  hand  some  ready 
monitor  to  decide  whether  this  book  or  paper  is 
worth  the  eyesight  and  the  brain  expended  on  it  — 
whether  honest  silence,  observation,  thought,  or  even 
reverie,  is  not  preferable  to  this  particular  reading. 

I  have  sometimes  in  a  railway  carriage  watched 
half  a  dozen  people  with  eyes  glued  to  a  printed 
page,  while  the  train  has  been  moving  through  coun¬ 
try  of  rare  beauty  or  of  deep  historic  interest.  There 
is  a  man  feverishly  reading  the  betting  news  in  the 
Sporting  Times ,  while  the  green  meadows  stretch 
away  on  either  side  of  the  line,  golden  with  butter¬ 
cups,  defined  by  the  silver  with  hawthorn-hedges; 
the  white  lambs  frisking  in  the  shadow,  and  the 


LITERATURE 


26l 


sky-blue  kingfisher  flashing  down  a  stream.  Or  there 
is  a  boy  poring  over  the  semi-nudities  and  the  nasty 
innuendos  of  the  comic  paper  which  delights  his 
heart,  while  we  are  passing  scenes  of  his  country’s 
history,  which,  by  a  momentary  memory,  might  stir 
him  to  nobility  of  life  and  character.  Up  those 
smooth  slopes  of  the  downs,  now  gleaming  in  the 
sunshine,  which  is  melting  the  mists,  Alfred  made  his 
heroic  onset  on  the  Danes.  In  that  old  house,  whose 
twisted  chimneys  just  emerge  above  the  sheltering 
trees,  one  of  our  great  poets  lived  and  wrote.  In  a 
word,  the  train  is  gliding  through  a  pictured  book, 
richer  and  nobler  than  is  to  be  found  on  a  library 
shelf;  but  the  travellers  are  blind  to  its  beauty  and 
deaf  to  its  lore,  because  they  are  reading ,  engaged 
in  an  occupation  which  has  been  commended  as 
virtuous,  but  which,  in  this  case,  is  quite  the  reverse. 
The  good  is  the  enemy  of  the  best.  We  have  given 
to  reading  a  good  name,  and  it  is  now  one  of  the 
main  hindrances  to  strenuous  thought,  to  growth  of 
character,  to  observation  of  life. 

Before  any  reflecting  mind,  opens  the  world,  let 
us  even  say  the  universe,  the  home  of  the  spirit  of 
man ;  and,  under  its  lofty  dome,  on  the  countryside, 
or  in  the  thronging  town,  the  life  of  man  is  transact¬ 
ing  itself  —  history  and  biography  and  poetry  are 
being  lived.  Here,  everywhere,  is  the  still  sad 
music  of  humanity ;  here,  everywhere,  is  the  forward 
march,  the  pressing  to  a  goal.  The  whole  scene  is 
draped  in  solemn  beauty;  the  whole  movement 


262 


GREAT  ISSUES 


thrills  with  unutterable  meaning.  Every  pebble  and 
flower  is  a  library.  Every  human  soul  is  an  unsearch¬ 
able  mystery  of  being.  God  is  certainly  not  to  be 
evaded  by  any  one  who  thinks  and  observes.  He  is 
too  obvious,  diffused  in  the  glory  and  wonder  of  the 
whole,  flashing  out  in  the  ingenuity,  the  wisdom,  and 
the  love,  of  every  part.  Here,  indeed,  is  a  Book  to 
read,  a  veritable  endless  Bible,  or  revelation  of  the 
Divine  to  the  heart  of  man.  Here  is  a  newspaper, 
issued  morning  and  evening,  with  many  editions 
during  the  day,  recording  the  true  events  of  the 
world,  not  liable  to  contradiction.  The  outgoings 
of  the  morning  and  of  the  evening  rejoice.  The  sun 
publishes,  and  the  stars  take  up  the  tale.  But  all 
this  reading  of  earth,  of  man,  and  of  God  is  precluded 
for  these  travellers  along  the  way  by  their  absorption 
in  the  base  excitements  of  the  racecourse,  or  the 
lucubrations  of  a  scribe  who  has  lost  the  power  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  can  only  issue  from  the 
noisome  office  and  the  midnight  flare  of  an  over¬ 
wrought  city  —  words,  scenes,  ideas,  which  have  no 
relation  with  the  facts  of  the  universe  or  the  truth  of 
God. 

But  what  is  the  criterium?  What  is  the  standard 
by  which  approximately  we  may  distinguish  litera¬ 
ture  from  spurious  literature?  In  the  absence  of 
any  decisive  verdict  of  an  Academy,  I  venture  to 
suggest  that  literature  is  only  that  writing  which 
combines  truth  and  beauty. 

It  may  be  said  that  truth  is  beauty;  and  there  is 


LITERATURE 


263 


much  to  be  said  for  the  view  that  beauty  is  truth. 
But  we  are  not  defining  things,  or  ultimate  realities; 
we  are  trying  to  define  literature.  Writing  which  is 
at  once  true  and  beautiful,  and  such  writing  alone, 
deserves  the  name.  A  book  may  be  true  and  useful, 
the  facts  it  contains  may  be  worth  knowing,  and  they 
may  be  stated  with  accuracy  and  sincerity,  such  as  a 
book  of  trade  statistics  or  a  medical  or  law  book, 
and  yet  it  may  have  no  literary  value,  because  it 
lacks  beauty  of  form  or  diction.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  book  may  be  beautiful  and  yet  putrescent.  It 
may  set  itself  to  describe  the  alluring  forms  of  vice, 
and  to  shatter  the  moral  sense  of  the  reader,  by 
draping  evil  in  the  shimmering  gold  and  the  volup¬ 
tuous  folds  which  make  it  irresistible.  But  its  want 
of  truth  excludes  it  from  the  rank  of  literature.  It 
is  true,  perhaps,  in  the  sense  that  it  accurately  de¬ 
scribes  the  ways  and  the  attractions  of  evil,  but  it  is 
false  in  that  it  represents  those  attractions  as  real, 
whereas  they  are  delusive.  The  apples  of  Sodom  are 
beautiful  to  look  at,  but  dust  and  ashes  in  the  mouth. 
The  book  we  are  speaking  of  represents  them  only 
as  beautiful,  and  does  not  reveal  their  inner  meaning. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  true. 

Our  definition,  it  will  be  seen,  cannot  be  applied 
by  rule  of  thumb.  Thought,  reflection,  conscience 
are  needed  to  apply  it.  This  should  be  no  objection. 
But  will  any  writing  which  combines  truth  and 
beauty  deserve  to  rank  as  literature?  Is  there  not 
something  more  ?  Must  not  the  truth  be  of  sufficient 


264 


GREAT  ISSUES 


weight  and  value,  and  must  not  the  beauty  be  origi¬ 
nal,  something  freshly  formed  in  a  mind  which  sees 
as  others  have  not  seen  ?  Emerson  said  that  the  way 
to  write  what  should  not  be  forgotten  was  to  think 
and  write  sincerely.  But  is  that  enough  ?  May  we 
not  write  platitudes  sincerely,  not  knowing  that  they 
are  not  discoveries?  And  can  a  sincere  reproduc¬ 
tion  of  platitudes  be  welcomed  as  literature?  Can 
Martin  Tupper  maintain  a  place  among  the  im¬ 
mortals  ? 

But,  it  may  be  answered,  our  definition  will  stand 
without  an  appendix  if  only  we  take  account  of  the 
deep  meaning  both  of  truth  and  of  beauty.  Emerson 
is  right.  Truth  in  literature  means  sincerity  in  the 
writer.  Every  writer  is  a  personality,  distinct  from 
all  others.  Let  him  be  completely  sincere,  frank, 
gifted  with  power  to  utter  himself  and  his  thought, 
without  subterfuge  or  pretence,  and  that  self-utter¬ 
ance,  if  only  it  has  the  quality  of  beauty,  will  be 
literature.  The  writer  may  clothe  his  thought  in 
poetry  or  prose,  in  history  or  in  fiction,  in  science  or 
speculation,  but  his  sincerity  will  be  the  truth  of 
whichever  form  he  adopts.  Literature,  after  all,  is 
the  reflection  of  writers.  The  writers  must  be  good, 
sane,  wise,  clean,  truth-loving,  or  their  products  can¬ 
not  be  literature.  Benvenuto  Cellini  or  Pepys  can 
produce  a  book  which  has  the  stamp  of  literature, 
because,  though  the  lives  they  present  to  the  reader 
are  by  no  means  faultless,  they  have  the  crowning 
virtue  of  sincerity.  Evil  is  in  them  as  evil,  not  as 


LITERATURE 


265 


good.  There  is  no  self-delusion.  There  is  no  pose. 
Here  is  a  correct  transcript  of  a  soul,  given  in  language 
which  has  charm  and  beauty.  George  Borrow  may 
seem  a  singular  example  of  truth,  for  no  wit  of  man 
can  discover  where  he  is  romancing  and  where  he  is 
describing  what  occurred.  But  his  place  in  literature 
is  due  to  “The  Bible  in  Spain,”  and  that  book  rests 
entirely  on  letters  written  from  Spain.  The  book, 
therefore,  is  an  actuality.  With  forthright  literal¬ 
ness  he  presents  the  facts  in  language  of  singular 
correctness  and  strength.  The  book  is  literature. 
“Lavengro,”  much  more  brilliant,  more  interesting, 
more  wonderful,  owes  its  place,  in  our  consideration, 
to  the  reputation  of  “The  Bible  in  Spain.”  The 
element  of  sincerity  is  defective.  There  is  a  pose, 
an  affectation;  and  though  there  are  passages  of 
great  beauty,  the  book,  as  a  whole,  is  not  beau¬ 
tiful. 

But  it  is  time  that  we  divided  literature  into  its 
two  most  obvious  branches  —  poetry  and  prose. 
Only,  before  we  do  so,  let  us  notice  the  definition  of 
lherature  in  the  discriminating  sense  offered  by  the 
dictionary,  “writing  which  has  claim  to  consideration 
on  the  ground  of  beauty  of  form  or  emotional  effect.” 
Here  nothing  is  said  of  truth,  except  so  far  as  it  is 
implied  in  beauty;  and  here  an  opening  is  given  for 
writing  on  the  plea  of  emotional  effect,  which  our 
own  definition  would  exclude  because  the  emotion 
is  bad  or  false.  We  must  firmly  grasp  our  definition, 
then,  that  literature  is  only  writing  which  combines 


266 


GREAT  ISSUES 


truth  and  beauty,  or  we  shall  lose  our  foothold  directly 
we  enter  the  enchanted  realm  of  poetry. 

Plato  firmly  banished  the  poets  from  his  Republic 
because  they  were  liars.  But  his  only  chance  of 
escaping  from  the  charge  of  poetry  himself  is  to 
restrict  the  definition  of  poetry  to  metrical  form. 
The  schoolboy’s  answer  to  the  question,  “What  is 
poetry?”  “Where  every  line  begins  with  a  capi¬ 
tal,”  might  show  Plato  not  a  poet.  But  essentially 
he  is  more  a  poet  than  Hesiod.  Does  literature 
begin  in  poetry  because  metrical  language  is  easier 
to  remember,  a  consideration  of  some  importance 
before  the  use  of  writing?  Is  the  rhythm  or  the 
rhyme  simply  a  memoria  tecknica  ?  James  Fitz- 
james  Stephen  said  that  Milton  might  have  uttered 
“Paradise  Lost”  more  effectively  in  a  short  prose 
pamphlet  of  half  a  dozen  pages.  Is  that  the  truth  ? 
Certainly  the  irritating  effect  of  doggerel  —  that  is, 
rhymed  lines  without  any  beauty  of  thought  or  form 
—  might  give  a  distaste  for  metrical  language  as 
deep  as  Mr.  Stephen’s.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
extravagance  of  Mr.  Stephen’s  judgment  reminds 
us  that  beauty  of  verse  is  an  element  in  literature, 
though  he  may  have  been  blind  to  it. 

The  reason  why  literature  begins  in  poetry  is  that 
in  the  freshness  of  the  world’s  youth  and  in  the  de¬ 
light  of  song  the  rhythmical  utterance  is  spontaneous. 
The  measured  language,  the  assonance  or  the  rhyme, 
is  an  element  of  beauty.  Where  rhythm  ceases  to  be 
beautiful  it  ceases  to  be  poetry.  Doggerel  is  admit- 


LITERATURE 


267 


tedly  more  detestable  than  bad  prose.  But  in  poetry, 
if  it  is  poetry  at  all,  there  is  a  beauty  much  deeper 
and  more  subtle  than  the  charm  of  musical  words 
and  rhythmic  movement.  Of  Mr.  Swinburne, 
Tennyson  said  that  he  was  a  pipe  through  which 
every  wind  blew  to  music,  but  that  does  not  give 
Mr.  Swinburne  a  place  in  literature.  In  the  famous 
chorus  of  the  “Atalanta”  — 

“  Before  the  beginning  of  years  there  came  to  the  making  of 
man, 

Grief  with  a  gift  of  tears,  time  with  a  glass  that  ran,” 

there  is  a  music  of  words,  a  swift,  inevitable  preci¬ 
sion  of  rhyme  and  assonance,  which  make  the  read¬ 
ing  of  it  an  ever  new  delight.  But  there  is  something 
far  deeper  and  more  beautiful  —  the  haunting  para¬ 
dox  of  the  mingled  elements  in  the  composition  of 
man,  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  human  life,  the  doubt 
and  the  certainty  of  human  destiny,  which  gave  to 
the  Greek  tragic  drama  its  immortal  charm.  Half 
the  beauty  of  human  affairs  is  in  the  joy,  the  other 
half  is  in  the  sorrow.  The  charm  is  in  the  pathos. 
The  mood  of  poetry  is  that  in  which  pleasant  thoughts 
bring  sad  thoughts  to  the  mind,  or  vice  versd. 

Thus  Professor  Gilbert  Murray  says,  speaking  of 
that  old  Greek  tragedy:  “It  is  a  strange  fact,  this 
carrying  power  of  a  thing  so  frail  as  poetry,  or  of 
that  creative  effort  in  philosophic  thought  which  is  of 
the  same  stuff  as  poetry.  Avpa  7 tovticls  avpa  ( ‘  Wind, 
wind  of  the  deep  sea’)  begins  a  chorus  in  the  ‘  Hecuba,’ 


268 


GREAT  ISSUES 


and  fifty  others  could  be  chosen  like  it.  How  slight 
the  words  are !  Yet  there  is  in  them  just  that  inex¬ 
plicable  beauty,  that  quick  shiver  of  joy  or  longing, 
which,  as  it  was  fresh  then  in  a  world  whose  very 
bone  and  iron  have  long  since  passed  into  dust,  is 
fresh  still  and  alive  still,  only  harder  to  reach,  more 
easy  to  forget,  to  disregard,  to  smother  with  irrele¬ 
vancy,  far  more  in  danger  of  death.  For,  like  certain 
other  of  the  things  of  the  spirit,  it  will  die  if  it  is  not 
loved.” 1 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  curious  analysis  of  poetry 
as  “the  criticism  of  life,”  struck  into  a  most  interest¬ 
ing  and  convincing  vein  when  he  took  certain  lines 
from  Homer  and  Milton,  and  tried  to  show  why  they 
gave  us  this  sense  of  inexplicable  beauty,  this  quick 
shiver  of  joy  or  longing.  That  is  the  only  way  to 
open  dull  minds  to  the  appreciation  of  poetry.  That 
is  the  only,  but  sufficient,  vindication  of  poetry. 

Take  those  perfectly  simple  and  apparently  artless 
lines  of  William  Allingham : 

“Three  ducks  on  a  pond, 

A  green  bank  beyond, 

The  blue  sky  of  spring, 

Light  clouds  on  the  wing, 

Oh  what  a  little  thing 
To  remember  for  years, 

To  remember  with  tears!” 

* 

The  beauty  there  is  not  in  the  words,  for  they  are 
obvious  and  undistinguished.  There  is  beauty,  no 


1  “The  Interpretation  of  Ancient  Greek  Literature,”  p.  18. 


LITERATURE 


269 


doubt,  in  the  simple  succession  of  brief  lines,  as  in  the 
little  pantings  and  sobbings  of  reminiscence.  But  the 
beauty  which  captivates  and  then  haunts  us  in  the 
verse  is  deeper.  The  linked  periods  of  human  life, 
the  pathos  of  childish  memories  in  later  years,  the 
curious  effect  of  Nature  on  the  mind  before  its  period 
of  reflection  begins,  the  stamped  images  of  colour  and 
form  in  the  marvellous  pageant  of  the  world  by  which 
we  are  always  surrounded  —  all  this,  and  more,  steals 
into  the  soul  with  the  reading  of  the  lines  and  floods 
it  with  beauty. 

Or  murmur  these  two  magical  lines  of  Mr.  Swin¬ 
burne’s  : 

“Where  waves  of  grass  break  into  foam  of  flowers, 

Or  where  the  wind’s  feet  shine  along  the  sea.” 

There  is  music  of  language  unmistakable.  But 
behind  the  language,  beautified  by  the  intricate 
though  simple  imagery,  is  the  actual  picture  in  Na¬ 
ture,  and  the  mental  delight  of  comparing  the  flowery 
mead  of  summer  with  the  sea,  and  the  swift  move¬ 
ment  of  the  wind  on  the  waters  with  the  passing  of 
some  goddess  whose  gleaming  feet  make  tracks  of 
light. 

Or  here  are  a  few  lines  from  a  sonnet  which  paints 
the  “pathos  of  the  trees’  decline”  in  autumn: 

“When  all  my  last  buds  drooped  in  hopeless  mood, 

I  took  the  valley  road,  of  songs  bereft, 

Bordered  with  hanging  woods,  where  Winter  stood 
Wrapt  in  the  vivid  garment  Autumn  left. 


270 


GREAT  ISSUES 


There,  where  he  stood  in  bronzed  gold  of  the  brake, 
Sprayed  with  the  ruby  of  the  bramble’s  leaf, 

I  made  my  suit  for  generous  Autumn’s  sake, 

That  he  would  grant  her  children  respite  brief.”  1 

Here  a  pensive  beauty  in  language  carries  the 
thought  into  the  pensiveness  of  a  late  autumn  day, 
and  links  the  mind  with  the  processes  of  Nature, 
the  succession  of  the  seasons,  the  colour  and  change 
of  the  earth,  which  are  themselves  the  poetry  appeal¬ 
ing  to  every  child  of  man. 

Perhaps  in  poetry,  the  earliest  and  the  latest 
literary  form,  beauty  predominates  over  truth,  in  the 
sense  that  we  look  for  beauty  before  we  are  awake 
on  the  question  of  truth.  But  it  must  be  observed 
that  poetry  establishes  no  permanent  claim,  and 
secures  no  recognized  place  in  literature,  except  so 
far  as  it  is  true.  We  hope  that  Plato  spoke  satiri¬ 
cally  when  he  threatened  to  banish  the  poets  from  his 
ideal  State.  There  are  always  enough  poets  who  are 
false  to  justify  an  edict  of  expulsion.  None  the  less, 
poetry  is  truth.  Transparent  sincerity  and  an  al¬ 
most  slavish  attachment  to  fact  in  its  minutest  detail 
are  the  distinguishing  marks  of  all  great  poets. 
Thus,  even  in  their  less  splendid  passages  they  are 
worth  reading;  their  truth  emerges  where  their 
beauty  fails.  As  Landor  puts  it :  “  Few  consider  that 
every  page  of  a  really  great  poet  has  something  in  it 
which  distinguishes  him  from  an  inferior  order, 
something  which,  if  insubstantial  as  the  aliment, 

1  “Poems  by  Two  Friends.”  J.  M.  Dent  &  Co. 


LITERATURE 


271 


serves  at  least  as  a  solvent  of  the  aliment,  of  strong 
and  active  minds.”  1 

Wordsworth,  for  example,  has  many  pages,  espe¬ 
cially  in  the  “Excursion,”  which  would  hardly  be 
called  poetry  but  for  the  (mechanical  and  artificial) 
cutting  up  into  decasyllabic  lines.  But  there  is  no 
page  which  is  not  beautiful  with  truth.  His  view  of 
things  is  so  just,  his  principles  are  so  sane,  and  his 
sympathy  with  men  is  so  deep  that  he  cannot  even 
in  his  letters  be  other  than  serviceable  to  his  reader. 
His  poetry,  at  times  beautiful  with  a  beauty  which 
brings  tears  of  joy  to  the  eyes,  touching  the  sensitive 
chords  of  the  heart  like  a  violinist’s  bow,  and  elicit¬ 
ing  unearthly  music,  is  at  all  times  truth,  solid  reality 
of  earth  or  of  heaven,  blending  the  two.  Indeed, 
the  impatience  which  reads  only  short  lyrics,  elegant 
extracts,  and  purple  patches,  does  him  a  grave  in¬ 
justice,  and  never  really  knows  him.  No  poet  has 
so  much  prose  in  his  poetry,  but  no  poet’s  prose  is  so 
good. 

A  great  poet  is,  without  knowing  it  or  intending 
it,  a  great  teacher.  Homer  was  the  Bible  of  the 
Greeks,  in  spite  of  Plato’s  grave  disapproval,  not  a 
Bible  that  could  ever  claim  moral  or  spiritual  infalli¬ 
bility,  but  a  book  of  inexhaustible  wisdom,  from 
which  texts  can  be  found  for  all  occasions. 

Shakespeare  is  as  much  a  teacher  as  Dante,  though 
he  makes  no  parade  of  it.  Goethe  is,  next  to  Luther’s 
Bible,  the  most  powerful  teacher  of  Germany.  The 
1  “  Pericles  and  Aspasia,”  Let.  xxxii. 


272 


GREAT  ISSUES 


philosophers  and  men  of  science  touch  the  public 
faintly  and  indirectly,  but  Goethe  reaches  every 
hearth,  and  does  for  Germany  what  Burns  does  for 
Scotland.  The  poets  are  not  infallible.  They  see 
but  in  part,  and  often  through  a  glass  darkly.  They 
have  their  pitiable  lapses.  Donne  attempted  by  a 
life  of  piety  to  atone  for  poems  that  had  gone  forth 
from  him  in  his  youth  which  he  never  could  recall. 
Marlowe  might,  if  he  had  lived,  have  desired  to  burn 
whole  pages  of  his  translations  and  of  his  original 
work.  Burns  wrote  things  which  are  base  and  un¬ 
clean,  and,  but  for  their  lyrical  ease,  would  have  no 
claim  to  a  place  in  literature.  Byron  wallowed  in  an 
affected  vice,  and  tried  to  establish  his  claim  to  elec¬ 
tion,  the  election  of  the  lost,  by  a  daring  violation  of 
the  principles  of  morality  and  even  of  decency.  But 
for  all  their  lapses,  these,  like  the  other  great  poets, 
are  true  teachers :  their  fundamental  quality  is 
veracity,  even  moral  truth.  In  spite  of  themselves, 
unconsciously,  they  are,  as  poets,  on  the  side  of 
Heaven.  Their  truth  reaches  many  who  remain 
unaffected  by  Dante’s  austerity,  by  Spenser’s  golden 
mellowness  of  music,  by  Wordsworth’s  stainless 
mountain  air. 

“Don  Juan”  is  unsavoury  reading,  but  it  would 
not  tend  to  make,  it  would  even  tend  to  reclaim,  a 
debauchee.  The  poet  cannot  be  vicious,  though  he 
affects  to  be.  A  rush  of  elemental  purity  and  right¬ 
ness  suddenly  overwhelms  vice  with  ridicule,  which 
is  more  discouraging  to  it  than  reproof. 


LITERATURE 


273 


The  poet  does  not  set  out  to  be  a  teacher.  He 
only  looks  at  things  observantly  and  reflectively, 
and  sees  them  in  the  light  of  their  own  ideal.  He 
begins  to  celebrate  them  in  thoughts  which  are  to 
their  own  music  chanted.  He  presents  the  world, 
the  life,  and  time  as  they  are  to  him,  as,  we  may 
believe,  they  actually  are.  He  enables  others  to 
see  the  reality,  which  to  them  at  first  appears  to  be 
only  a  dream.  The  poet  seems  to  the  unpoetical  to 
be  an  idealist.  But  he  is  indeed  a  realist.  His 
claim  upon  us  is  that  he  says,  with  a  beauty  which 
is  his  incommunicable  gift,  what  is  true.  God 
Himself  is  the  best  poet, 

“And  the  real  is  His  song.” 

When  from  poetry  we  turn  to  prose,  perhaps,  like 
Carlyle,  with  a  sense  of  relief,  we  have  to  observe 
that  our  definition  of  literature  holds  here,  though  the 
stress  is  laid  on  the  truth  rather  than  on  the  beauty. 
Here  truth  is  everything.  Bad  prose  is  false,  unreal, 
misleading.  Any  prose  that  is  quite  truthful,  exact, 
and  able  to  convey  truth  to  the  reader,  is,  like  a  block 
of  unhewn  marble,  literature  in  the  rough.  But  it 
must  be  carved  and  polished  if  it  is  to  live  as  literature. 

The  main  objection  to  the  vast  deluge  of  printed 
matter  under  which  the  modern  world  is  submerged 
is  that  it  has  not  truth  as  its  motive  or  its  substance. 
Journalism  aims  at  effect  rather  than  at  truth.  It  is 
corrupted  by  party  feeling.  It  records  things  which 
are  not  true  and  corrects  them  on  the  following  day. 


274 


GREAT  ISSUES 


It  deliberately  excises,  twists,  suggests,  in  order  to 
convey  a  convenient  impression  which  is  the  reverse 
of  the  facts.  The  writers  have  no  interest  in  truth 
as  such;  their  interest  is  in  a  swift  and  enormous 
sale.  It  is  this  which  prevents  journalism  from 
being  literature.  Here  and  there  a  journalist  hon¬ 
estly  aims  at  truth,  and  writes  articles  which  rank  as 
literature.  When  the  articles  are  collected  a  book 
emerges.  But,  like  Coleridge’s  “Friend,”  such 
writing  will  never  sell  a  paper.  Such  writers  are 
soon  at  a  discount.  Lord  Morley  began  as  a  journal¬ 
ist,  produced  real  books,  and  ended  as  a  statesman. 
He  is  a  great  and  shining  example,  but  the  Press  has 
not  laid  the  example  to  heart.  And  it  must  be  ad¬ 
mitted  that  John  Morley ’s  success  as  a  journalist 
is  not  beyond  dispute. 

An  immense  proportion  of  current  literature  is 
fiction.  Fiction  may  be  true,  and  frequently  is.  No 
books  are  truer  in  the  world  than  “Don  Quixote” 
and  “Tom  Jones.”  But  it  is  obviously  more  diffi¬ 
cult  to  write  true  fiction  than  true  history  or  true 
science.  To  write  true  history  it  is  necessary  to 
master  the  records  of  the  past,  and  to  have  a  capa¬ 
cious  mind  which  can  hold  the  causes  and  sequences 
of  events;  to  write  true  science  nothing  is  wanted 
but  patience  and  close  observation.  But  to  write 
true  fiction  the  writer  must  himself  be  wholly  true 
and  in  vital  contact  with  the  realities  of  human  life. 
A  Balzac,  a  Fielding,  a  Dickens,  is  as  rare  as  a  Mo- 
liere,  a  Shakespeare,  or  a  Browning. 


LITERATURE 


275 


Unfortunately,  to  write  bad  fiction  nothing  is 
wanted  but  pen  and  ink  and  a  lively  fancy.  To  write 
popular  fiction,  prurience  and  a  taste  for  sensual 
vice  may  be  added  as  lure  and  seasoning.  No 
knowledge  of  life  is  needed,  except  that  knowledge 
which  is  only  a  euphemism  for  acquaintance  with  sin. 
No  balance  of  judgment,  no  insight,  no  sympathy, 
no  knowledge  of  science  or  literature,  no  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  goodness  or  with  God  is  demanded.  If 
a  man,  or,  better  still,  a  nimble-minded  woman, 
lives  in  society,  reflects  its  foibles,  and  catches  its 
dialect,  all  that  has  to  be  done  is  to  sit  down  and 
concoct  a  plot  out  of  the  incidents  which  are  daily 
occurring;  and  the  world  will  call  the  story  true, 
because  it  corresponds  to  what  it  actually  sees.  But 
what  it  sees  is  not  true;  and  the  book  that  reflects 
its  vision  is  false  as  the  vision  itself.  Literature  is 
truth,  truth  of  fact,  truth  of  feeling,  truth  of  life. 
It  is  spoiled  by  false  feeling,  sentimentality,  just  as 
it  is  spoiled  by  false  statements,  lying,  or  by  the  sup¬ 
pression  or  distortion  of  facts.  Fiction  is  only 
saved  from  being  noxious  by  being  true,  more  true 
than  even  a  Blue  Book  or  a  table  of  statistics. 

But  if  truth  is  the  essence  of  literature,  it  might 
seem  as  if  all  solid  essays  on  facts,  all  historical 
treatises,  all  sound  philosophical  speculations,  would 
be  literature.  But  this  is  notoriously  not  the  case. 
What  is  it  that  is  wanting,  what  is  it  that  makes 
us  hesitate  to  call  the  Annual  Register  or  the  Ency¬ 
clopaedia,  however  true  they  may  be,  literature? 


276 


GREAT  ISSUES 


It  is  the  element  of  beauty.  To  this  element  the 
mind,  debauched  by  bad  writing  of  many  kinds, 
may  become  almost  insensible.  Flamboyant  de¬ 
scriptions,  sounding  rodomontade,  invective,  jokes, 
and  tit-bits,  may  create  a  diseased  palate,  until 
beautiful  writing  seems  tame  as  a  marble  statue, 
in  comparison  with  the  flaunting  figures  on  the 
boulevard,  or  undistinguished  as  a  rose  garden  after 
the  glittering  splendours  of  the  stage. 

But  the  beauty  which  is  demanded  in  writing,  if 
the  writing  is  to  be  literature,  is  not  all  of  one  kind. 
The  best  literature  presents  a  manifold  beauty, 
elements  of  beauty  which  can  be  traced  and  analyzed, 
and  a  consummation  which  escapes  analysis,  like 
that  element  which  we  just  examined  in  poetry,  a 
perfection  in  which  the  varied  beauties  are  har¬ 
monized. 

There  is  a  beauty  of  prose  which  is  distinguished 
from  that  of  poetry  only  by  the  substitution  of  a  freer 
rhythm  for  the  exact  divisions  of  lines  and  stanzas. 
The  description  of  the  mosses  in  “  Modern  Painters,” 
or  the  description  of  the  ship  in  “The  Harbours  of 
England,”  Carlyle’s  description  of  Marie  Antoinette 
as  she  first  appeared  at  Court  in  “The  Diamond 
Necklace,”  or  De  Quincey’s  description  of  the  stage¬ 
coach  rushing  through  the  night,  would  quite  justly 
be  described  as  poetry.  The  music  of  the  words, 
the  rhythm  of  the  sentences,  the  richness  and  colour 
of  the  diction,  the  depth  of  feeling,  the  imaginative 
insight  into  related  facts,  and  suggestions  of  other 


LITERATURE 


277 


trains  of  thought  or  associated  emotions,  are  pre¬ 
cisely  the  elements  which  make  great  poetry.  We 
have  no  reason  to  regret  that  Ruskin,  Carlyle,  or 
De  Quincey  eschewed  the  vehicle  of  verse,  and  found 
themselves  in  this  flexible  and  opulent  prose.  Or 
rather,  the  only  reason  for  regret  is  that  these  great 
passages,  buried  in  bulky  volumes,  and  surrounded 
with  prose  of  a  pedestrian  quality,  may  not  survive 
so  vitally  in  literature  as  single  poems,  like  “The 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,”  or  “The  Burial 
of  Sir  John  Moore.”  Verse  is  curiously  preserva¬ 
tive.  It  furnishes  wings  which  carry  light  pieces 
right  down  the  course  of  time. 

But  there  are  some  who  question  the  legitimacy 
of  this  poetical  prose,  and  in  any  case  prose  cannot 
live  on  these  heights.  If  its  beauty  can  only  be  of 
the  poetical  kind,  it  cannot  establish  its  claim. 

There  is  in  prose  the  beauty  of  compact  and  neat 
expression,  which  makes  a  sentence  stand  out  like 
a  polished  gem.  Walter  Savage  Landor  and  Walter 
Pater  have  produced  wonders  in  this  kind.  As  we 
keep  cabinets  of  gems,  so  we  range  over  the  pages 
of  these  writers,  and  find  fresh  delights  for  eye  and 
mind  each  time  we  revolve  the  flashing  and  crystal¬ 
line  sentences. 

“Ah!  my  Aspasia,  philosophy  does  not  bring 
her  sons  together;  she  portions  them  off  early, 
gives  them  a  scanty  stock  of  worm-eaten  furniture, 
a  chair  or  two  on  which  it  is  dangerous  to  sit  down, 
and  at  least  as  many  arms  as  utensils;  then  leaves 
them :  they  seldom  meet  afterward.” 


278 


GREAT  ISSUES 


What  a  sense  of  satisfaction  and  wonder  is  pro¬ 
duced  by  a  sentence  like  this,  which  sums  the  his¬ 
tory  of  philosophy  in  three  or  four  lines  ! 

Or,  again,  how  we  seem  to  pass  into  the  clear, 
sun-bathed  air  of  Attica  in  a  remark  like  this :  “  Men 
may  be  negligent  in  their  hand-writing,  for  men 
may  be  in  a  hurry  about  the  business  of  life;  but  I 
never  knew  either  a  sensible  woman  or  an  estimable 
one  whose  writing  was  disorderly.” 

Or,  once  more,  how  unhesitatingly  we  know  that 
we  are  touching  real  literature  when  we  read:  “Do 
not  chide  me,  then,  for  coming  to  you  after  the  blos¬ 
soms  and  buds  and  herbage:  do  not  keep  to  your¬ 
selves  all  the  grass  on  the  Meander.  We  used  to 
share  it;  we  will  now.  I  love  it  wherever  I  can  get  a 
glimpse  of  it.  It  is  the  home  of  the  eyes,  ever  ready 
to  receive  them,  and  spreading  its  cool  couch  for  their 
repose.” 

For  Pater,  let  these  serve :  “  Certainly  the  mind  of 
the  old  workman  who  struck  that  coin  was,  if  we  may 
trust  the  testimony  of  his  work,  unclouded  by  impure 
or  gloomy  shadows.  The  thought  of  Demeter  is 
impressed  here,  with  all  the  purity  and  proportion, 
the  purged  and  dainty  intelligence,  of  the  human 
countenance.” 

Or  this  of  Ladas,  the  famous  runner,  in  the  Capi¬ 
tol  :  “  Of  necessity,  but  fatally,  he  must  pause  for  a 
few  moments  in  his  course ;  or  the  course  is  at  length 
over,  or  the  breathless  journey  with  some  all-impor¬ 
tant  tidings;  and  now,  not  till  now,  he  thinks  of 


LITERATURE 


279 


resting  to  draw  from  the  sole  of  his  foot  the  cruel 
thorn,  driven  into  it  as  he  ran.  In  any  case,  there  he 
still  sits  for  a  moment,  for  ever,  amid  the  smiling 
admiration  of  centuries,  in  the  agility,  in  the  perfect 
naivete  also  as  thus  occupied,  of  his  sixteenth  year, 
to  which  the  somewhat  lengthy  or  attenuated  struc¬ 
ture  of  the  limbs  is  conformable.” 

Here  is  a  beauty  of  language  which  suggests  a 
carved  agate  or  a  liquid  amethyst.  It  is  not  the 
beauty  of  spontaneity  or  abounding  life,  but  the 
beauty  achieved  by  the  craftsman,  with  deliberate 
purpose,  who  will  not  lay  down  his  tool,  or  hesitate 
to  cast  aside  a  damaged  stone,  until  he  reaches  what, 
at  any  rate  for  the  moment,  seems  to  him  perfection. 
It  is  this  kind  of  beauty  which  made  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson’s  work  such  hard  writing  and  such  easy 
reading. 

There  is  a  third  kind  of  beauty  in  prose  which 
may  raise  it  to  the  rank  of  literature,  viz.,  intensity 
of  feeling.  The  human  soul  under  strong  emotion 
is  very  beautiful ;  the  face  flushes,  and  the  eye  gleams, 
and  the  body  throws  itself  into  striking  postures; 
under  this  kind  of  inspiration  a  plain  and  uninterest¬ 
ing  person  is  transfigured.  When  we  meet  the  orator, 
the  singer,  the  actor,  in  private,  we  can  hardly  believe 
that  this  ordinary,  quiet  person  was  the  centre  of  that 
brilliant  display.  In  his  brain,  and  on  his  tongue, 
for  the  moment,  the  powers  of  the  universe  had  rolled 
and  thundered,  the  soft  music  of  things  had  whis¬ 
pered,  the  fountain  of  tears  had  been  unsealed,  the 


280 


GREAT  ISSUES 


vast  mirth  of  the  happy  ages  had  rippled  and  laughed. 
So  it  is  in  books.  Writing  which  succeeds  in  express¬ 
ing  genuine  emotion,  if  that  emotion  is  beautiful, 
becomes  beautiful  with  that  which  it  expresses ;  it  is 
suffused  with  the  light,  the  warmth,  the  sweetness, 
of  its  subject.  Thus  historical  writing,  like  Macau¬ 
lay’s  or  Froude’s,  may  attain  the  rank  of  literature, 
not  by  accuracy  or  impartiality,  which  are  the  tests 
of  history,  but  by  the  conviction  and  feeling  which 
burn  through  it. 

The  “Pilgrim’s  Progress”  is  literature,  in  spite 
of  the  judgment  of  the  author  of  “Ionica”  that  it  is 
“wretched  stuff.”  The  immeasurable  seriousness 
of  its  theme  is  heightened  by  the  wittiest  characteri¬ 
zation,  and  by  gay  pictures  drawn  from  contempo¬ 
rary  England.  But  through  it  all  runs  the  deep  feel¬ 
ing  of  eternity  and  human  destiny.  Its  homespun 
stuff  is  shot  through  with  threads  of  the  cloth  of 
gold. 

There  is  a  fourth  beauty  which  will  raise  appar¬ 
ently  pedestrian  prose  to  the  rank  of  literature  — 
that  is,  lucidity,  a  quality  hard  of  attainment  and 
very  rare.  For  few  souls  are  lucid,  and  when  they 
are  they  are  surrounded  with  an  opaque  and  ob¬ 
scuring  integument  which  it  is  difficult  to  break 
through.  Many  people  are  capable  of  clearness  to 
the  length  of  a  one-page  letter,  others  can  carry  it  to 
the  length  of  a  newspaper  article,  but  only  gifted 
minds  can  maintain  clearness  through  a  prolonged 
composition.  A  book  which  is  lucid  from  beginning 


LITERATURE 


281 


to  end  gains,  and  deserves,  readers.  If  its  theme 
is  truth  of  permanent  value,  the  book  will  become 
literature.  This  is  how  Hooker’s  “Ecclesiastical 
Polity”  and  Adam  Smith’s  “Wealth  of  Nations” 
have  attained  their  rank.  Hume’s  philosophy  is 
not  of  permanent  value,  but  his  writing  is  trans¬ 
parently  clear,  and  he  will  be  admitted  to  the  slopes 
of  Parnassus  when  the  philosophical  schools  have 
banned  him  as  barren.  Defoe  is  a  master  of  this 
fascinating  lucidity ;  he  will  persuade  you  of  the  truth 
of  everything  he  touches,  because  he  makes  it  too 
clear  to  be  classed  with  fiction.  Cobbett,  and  John 
Bright,  and  Spurgeon  have  probably  attained  a  per¬ 
manent  place  in  literature,  and  will  outlast  sounding 
names  and  weighty  writers,  for  they  are  gifted  with 
an  admirable  clearness.  People  have  tried  to  explain 
it  by  saying  that  they  use  Saxon  words  in  preference 
to  the  Latin  and  other  foreign  imports  in  our  language. 
But  that  is  not  true.  If  you  examine  a  paragraph 
of  these  writers,  you  are  surprised  to  find  that  they 
use  long  words,  like  other  men.  Cobden  has  the 
same  charm  of  clearness;  that  will  be  granted  even 
by  Tariff  Reformers.  According  to  these  modern 
economists,  he  carried  Free  Trade  by  his  lucidity. 
But  consider  the  following  passage,  and  note  how 
free  the  language  is  from  the  affectations  of  simplicity, 
how  unhesitating  is  the  use  of  words  of  Latin  extrac¬ 
tion,  and  yet  how  clear  and  telling  every  phrase  is : 

“A  famine  fell  upon  nearly  one-half  of  a  great 
nation.  The  whole  world  hastened  to  contribute 


282 


GREAT  ISSUES 


money  and  food.  But  a  few  courageous  men  left 
their  homes  in  Middlesex  and  Surrey,  and  penetrated 
to  the  remotest  glens  and  bogs  of  the  west  coast  of 
the  stricken  island  to  administer  relief  with  their  own 
hands.  To  say  that  they  found  themselves  in  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  would  be  but  an  im¬ 
perfect  image.  They  were  in  the  charnel-house  of 
a  nation.  Never  since  the  fourteenth  century  did 
pestilence,  the  gaunt  handmaid  of  famine,  glean  such 
a  harvest.  In  the  midst  of  a  scene  which  no  field  of 
battle  ever  equalled  in  danger,  in  the  number  of  the 
slain  or  the  sufferings  of  the  surviving,  those  brave 
men  moved  as  calm  and  undismayed  as  if  they  had 
been  in  their  own  homes.  The  population  sank 
so  fast  that  the  living  could  not  bury  the  dead; 
half-interred  bodies  protruded  from  the  gaping 
graves;  often  the  wife  died  in  the  midst  of  her  starv¬ 
ing  children,  while  the  husband  lay  a  festering  corpse 
by  her  side.  Into  the  midst  of  these  horrors  did  our 
heroes  penetrate,  dragging  the  dead  from  the  living 
with  their  own  hands,  raising  the  head  of  famishing 
infancy,  and  pouring  nourishment  into  parched  lips, 
from  which  shot  fever  flames  more  deadly  than  a 
volley  of  musketry.  Here  was  courage.  No  music 
strung  the  nerves ;  no  smoke  obscured  the  imminent 
danger ;  no  thunder  of  artillery  deadened  the  senses. 
It  was  cool  self-possession  and  resolute  will,  cal¬ 
culating  risk,  and  heroic  resignation.  And  who 
were  these  brave  men?  To  what  gallant  corps  did 
they  belong?  Were  they  of  the  horse,  foot,  or  ar- 


LITERATURE 


283 


tillery  force?  They  were  Quakers  from  Clapham 
and  Kingston.  If  you  would  know  what  heroic 
acts  they  performed  you  must  inquire  from  those  who 
witnessed  them.  You  will  not  find  them  recorded  in 
the  volume  of  reports  published  by  themselves,  for 
Quakers  write  no  bulletins  of  their  victories.” 

It  may  be  thought  that  this  passage  exhibits  some 
of  the  other  beauties  which  have  been  enunciated, 
but  its  chief  beauty  is  its  transparent  lucidity.  The 
subject  is  one  which  might  lend  itself  to  dithyrambics, 
to  turgidity,  to  hysterics.  But  it  is  clear  as  the  reveal¬ 
ing  light  of  morning ;  it  looks  down  on  the  sufferings 
and  heroism  of  men  with  the  tranquil  radiance  of  the 
stars. 

This  leads  us  to  a  fifth  beauty,  which  gives  to 
some  writing,  of  no  literary  pretension,  an  enduring 
place  as  literature  —  that  is,  the  power  of  exact 
and  exhaustive  statement.  For  example,  no  writer 
ever  eschewed  ornament  and  fine  writing  more  than 
Bishop  Stubbs.  His  principal  theme,  constitutional 
history,  precludes  everything  of  the  kind.  But  all 
he  wrote  may  challenge  a  place  in  the  literature  of 
his  country,  because  he  can  marshal  an  immense 
mass  of  facts,  and  place  them  in  their  proper  con¬ 
nection.  The  fulness  of  truth  that  he  conveys, 
with  the  parsimony  of  language,  produces  a  sense  of 
beauty,  precisely  like  the  beauty  of  an  austere  chalk 
down  in  Sussex,  or  that  of  a  vast  stream  moving 
past  treeless  banks. 

But  no  one  illustrates  this  kind  of  beauty  which 


284 


GREAT  ISSUES 


makes  literature  better  than  Darwin.  He  was  under 
the  impression  that  he  could  not  write.  When  he 
attempted  to  record  the  results  of  his  patient  observa¬ 
tion,  and  to  reason  out  the  truths  which  were  de¬ 
monstrated  by  the  vast  accumulation  of  facts,  he  felt 
that  he  was  grasping  an  unaccustomed  weapon.  He 
expected  no  success ;  but  he  achieved  a  success  which 
surpasses  the  achievement  of  the  literary  artists  of 
his  time.  He  struggled  to  put  into  the  plainest 
language  the  truth  which  was  in  him.  He  aimed 
only  at  conveying  to  the  reader  what  was  proved  to 
him.  Of  himself  as  the  medium  he  did  not  think  at 
all.  The  result  is  that  his  books  are  valuable,  not 
only  as  works  of  science,  but  as  literature.  The 
Origin  of  Species  is  a  masterpiece  of  English.  Even 
the  treatise  on  earth-worms  is  of  hardly  less  literary 
beauty  than  Maeterlinck’s  exquisite  book  on  the  bee. 
This  brings  us  back  to  the  principle  with  which  we 
start  —  that  it  is,  after  all,  truth  which  makes  good 
prose ;  the  beauty  of  truth  is  the  excellence  which  of 
itself  will  suffice  to  rank  prose  as  literature.  Beauty 
is  not  ornament  or  tinsel;  it  may  be  in  form  and 
texture. 

To  create  the  love  of  literature  is  a  salutary  object 
of  education.  Nor  is  anything  else  needed  than  to 
discriminate  clearly  between  what  is  literature  and 
what  is  not.  Taste  comes  from  discrimination. 
The  mind  trained  to  a  love  of  literature  will  turn  with 
fastidious  distaste  from  writing  which  does  not  ap¬ 
proach  the  standard. 


LITERATURE 


285 


The  five  beauties  of  prose-writing  —  viz.,  poetry 
which  eschews  metrical  form,  the  construction  of 
gems  of  thought  or  expression,  the  utterance  of  gen¬ 
uine  and  worthy  emotion,  clearness  in  style,  exac¬ 
titude  and  fulness  of  statement  —  are  found  in  a 
remarkable  combination  and  harmony  in  one  Eng¬ 
lish  book.  The  Bible  contains  much  poetry,  though 
the  metrical  form  is  obscured  in  translation.  Job, 
Psalms,  and  Lamentations,  and  even  passages  of 
the  Prophets,  are  literally  poems.  But  the  Bible, 
taken  as  a  body  of  prose,  is  unequalled  in  our  lit¬ 
erature.  It  has  passages  of  concentrated  poetical 
expression,  in  the  Pauline  letters  or  in  the  Apocalypse. 
It  abounds  with  gems  of  thought  and  expression 
which  have  passed  into  common  speech  and  have 
done  more  than  anything  else  to  enrich  our  language. 
No  writing  ever  throbbed  with  deep  and  noble  feeling 
more  than  Deuteronomy  or  the  Gospels.  Lucidity 
of  expression  has  never  been  better  attained  than  in 
the  historical  narratives,  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
or  the  writings  of  John.  And  though  so  much  mat¬ 
ter,  and  so  great  a  tract  of  time,  are  compressed 
within  the  one  volume,  it  contains  passages  of  minute 
and  exact  statement,  as  in  the  Law,  or  in  Ezekiel, 
or  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  which  constitutes  a  su¬ 
preme  literary  beauty. 

Thus  a  man  unius  libri ,  as  Wesley  claimed  to  be, 
knowing  only  the  English  Bible,  might  know  all 
that  needs  to  be  known  for  literary  purposes,  and 
should  certainly  have  the  unerring  instinct  for  liter¬ 
ary  excellence. 


CHAPTER  X 

ART 

Art  is  like  religion  in  this,  that  it  suffers  most 
from  its  devotees.  But  it  is  also  like  religion  in  this, 
that  no  extravagance  or  fanaticism  of  its  schools 
or  sects  can  ever  destroy  it ;  it  is  an  inalienable  acci¬ 
dent  of  the  human  mind.  From  the  time  when 
Palaeolithic  man  graved  on  his  stone  axe  the  outline 
of  a  reindeer,  to  the  time  when  Pheidias  moulded  in 
marble  the  living  forms  of  the  frieze  of  the  Parthe¬ 
non;  from  the  time  when  the  Druids  stained  their 
bodies  with  woad,  to  the  time  when  Gainsborough 
draped  his  ladies  in  folds  of  silk  or  satin  and  in  ex¬ 
quisitely  studied  plumes,  which  blended  with  the 
landscape  behind  the  sitter,  until  art  and  Nature  ap¬ 
peared  to  be  inseparable;  from  the  gold  ornaments 
found  in  the  remains  of  the  lake  dwellings  at  Glaston¬ 
bury  to  the  coronals  of  diamonds  which  are  sold  in 
Regent  Street,  art  springs  up  in  the  life  of  man  as 
surely  as  season  follows  season  in  the  year. 

The  schools  and  cults  and  affectations  of  art  invest 
its  devotees  with  an  air  which  often  provokes  the 
contempt  and  wrath  of  the  unregenerate,  but  the 

286 


ART 


287 


true  artist  is  welcome  to  humanity  as  a  child.  In¬ 
deed,  as  George  Sand  said,  great  artists  are  great 
children. 

It  was  my  lot  to  be  at  Oxford  in  the  days  of  the 
.Esthetes,  and  one  of  my  contemporaries  was  that 
brilliant  man,  whose  affectations  were  the  prelude 
to  brilliant  achievements  in  verse  and  prose,  but 
whose  art  was  the  cover  for  one  of  the  most  tragic 
moral  disasters  of  modern  times.  It  was  he  who 
filled  his  college-rooms  with  blue  china,  and  said  to 
his  friends,  “How  hard  it  is  to  live  up  to  one’s 
blue  china!”  It  was  he  who  passed  the  severest 
censure  on  another  man  by  saying  that  “he  whistled 
while  he  took  his  bath  —  so  un-Greek  !”  It  was  he 
who  wrote  the  ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  and  that 
exquisitely  poignant  book,  the  consummation  of 
literary  art,  in  which  humility  and  contrition  and 
repentance  were  used  as  the  material  for  a  dramatic 
masterpiece. 

The  Preraphaelite  Movement,  which  Mr.  Holman 
Hunt  has  vindicated  in  his  autobiography,  that 
masterpiece  of  many-coloured  prose,  was,  as  it  were, 
exploited  and  rendered  ridiculous  by  the  affectations 
of  the  Esthetes.  Mr.  Justin  MacCarthy’s  satire 
is  almost  literal  truth.  “The  typical  Preraphael¬ 
ite,”  he  says,  “believed  Mr.  Dante  Rossetti  and  Mr. 
Burne-Jones  to  be  the  greatest  artists  of  the  ancient 
or  modern  world.  If  any  spoke  to  him  of  contem¬ 
porary  English  poetry  he  assumed  that  there  was 
only  a  question  of  Mr.  Rossetti,  Mr.  Swinburne,  or 


288 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Mr.  Morris.  In  modern  French  literature  he  ad¬ 
mired  Victor  Hugo,  Baudelaire,  and  one  or  two  others 
newer  to  song,  and  of  whom  the  outer  world  had  yet 
heard  little.  Among  the  writers  of  older  France  he 
was  chiefly  concerned  about  Francois  Villon.  He 
was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  paintings  of  the 
late  Henri  Regnault.  Probably  he  spoke  of  France 
as  ‘our  France.’  He  was  angry  with  Germans 
for  having  vexed  ‘our  France.’  He  professed  faith 
in  the  philosophy  of  Schopenhauer  and  the  music 
of  Wagner,  and  he  was  greatly  touched  by  Chopin. 
He  gave  himself  out  as  familiar  with  the  Greek 
poets,  and  was  wild  in  his  admiration  of  Sappho. 
He  made  for  himself  a  sort  of  religion  out  of  wall¬ 
papers,  old  teapots,  and  fans.  He  thought  to  order, 
and  yet,  above  all  things,  piqued  himself  on  his 
originality.  He  and  his  comrades  received  their 
opinions,  as  Charlemagne’s  converts  their  Chris¬ 
tianity,  in  platoons.  He  became  quite  a  distinct 
figure  in  the  literary  history  of  our  time,  and  he  posi¬ 
tively  called  into  existence  a  whole  school  of  satirists 
in  fiction,  verse,  and  drawing,  to  make  fun  of  his 
follies,  whimsicalities,  and  affectations.”  1 

The  description,  with  slight  alterations,  will  apply 
to  the  cliques  and  coteries  of  any  day,  the  dupes  of 
art,  the  parasites  of  great  artists.  I  have  heard  it 
said  of  a  much  more  recent  specimen  of  the  same 
type  that  “his  back-bone  had  been  removed,  and  in 
place  of  it  had  been  inserted  a  ha’porth  of  Botticelli.” 

1  “History  of  our  Own  Time,”  iv.  542. 


ART 


289 


These  are  the  people  who  invent  a  formula  like  “art 
for  art’s  sake,”  who  are  irritated  when  any  one  speaks 
of  the  morality,  or  even  of  the  subject,  of  a  picture. 
Art,  according  to  these  virtuosos,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  morality ;  the  subject  is  a  matter  of  indifference. 
They  are  contemptuous  of  a  painter  who  uses  his 
skill  with  the  brush  to  tell  a  story,  or  to  make  an 
appeal  of  any  sort  to  the  ordinary  mind,  which  values 
a  picture  for  its  interest  and  not  for  its  technical 
qualities.  These  are  the  people  who  would  have 
killed  art,  if  it  had  been  mortal. 

It  is  this  affectation  of  the  shallow  minds,  tricking 
themselves  in  the  feathers  of  art,  but  totally  uncon¬ 
scious  of  its  depths  or  of  its  significance,  that  has 
made  some  of  the  greatest  minds,  themselves  true 
artists,  contemptuous,  and  even  inimical  to  art. 
Plato  would  banish  the  poets  from  his  ideal  state  as 
liars ;  Carlyle  considered  nothing  worth  saying 
which  could  not  be  put  into  prose.  But  both  Plato 
and  Carlyle  were  great  artists.  The  “Republic”  itself 
is  a  poem ;  so  is  the  “French  Revolution.”  The  great 
artists  are  prone  to  sweep  away  impatiently  the  sum¬ 
mer-flies  of  art  which  buzz  about  their  ears.  They 
take  their  art  seriously ;  they  are  expressing  through 
it  the  best  that  is  in  them,  and  the  beauty,  tragical 
or  comical,  that  they  see  in  things.  The  petty  tribe 
of  virtuosos  and  connoisseurs,  therefore,  with  their 
shallow  formula,  “art  for  art’s  sake,”  and  the  like, 
and  their  ignorant  theories,  separating  art  from 
life  and  from  humanity,  are  infinitely  tedious  and 
u 


290 


GREAT  ISSUES 


annoying  to  them.  If  they  represent  art,  let  art  go. 
Let  us  have  done  with  art,  with  tricks,  and  come  back 
to  Nature  and  reality. 

But  art  is  not  the  victim  of  its  blind  admirers. 
It  survives  because  it  is  of  the  texture  of  life,  and  is 
incorporate  in  humanity.  It  is  the  instinctive  effort 
of  man  to  express  his  deepest  ideas  and  his  strongest 
emotions,  to  arrest  in  a  form  which  may  be  perma¬ 
nent  the  beauty  which  he  perceives  everywhere, 
shooting  through  things,  like  the  gleam  on  a  silk 
robe,  hovering  over  all  things,  like  the  changing  sky. 
The  artist  is  one  who  conceives  it  as  his  function  to 
practise  the  forms  of  expression,  that  he  may  utter 
what  is  not  only  in  him,  but  in  his  fellows.  His  work 
is  no  child’s  play.  He  must  submit  himself  to  the 
severest  discipline,  and  train  his  faculties  with  assidu¬ 
ous  care,  if  he  is  to  attain  success.  The  amateur 
and  the  dilettante  have  not  the  brain  or  muscle, 
the  will  and  the  resolution,  to  be  artists.  No  one 
treading  the  primrose-path  of  dalliance  acquires  the 
superb  self-mastery  which  makes  expression  sure, 
triumphant,  and  inevitable.  As  Ruskin  put  it  in 
“Flors  Clavigera,”  1  the  artist  is  “a  person  who  has 
submitted,  in  his  work,  to  a  law  which  it  was  painful 
to  obey,  that  he  may  bestow,  by  his  work,  a  delight 
which  it  is  gracious  to  bestow.” 

The  artists,  therefore,  are  the  exact  opposite  of 
the  dilettanti  and  the  easy  critics.  They  suffer  the 
fools,  sometimes  too  gladly,  for  few  men  are  free 

1  Vol.  v.  301. 


ART 


29I 


from  the  love  of  admiration  and  even  flattery.  But 
the  chatterers  and  poseurs  of  the  cliques  and  of  the 
schools  know  nothing  of  art.  They  have  no  concep¬ 
tion  of  its  strenuousness,  its  seriousness,  nor  of  the 
vital  and  essential  connection  that  exists  between 
beauty  and  truth. 

Thus  art  finds  its  place,  as  Professor  Eucken 
shows,  in  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  “The  outer,” 
he  says,  “far  as  it  may  fall  short  of  being  a  factor 
with  equal  rights,  yet  seems  indispensable  in  order 
to  drive  the  inner  to  definite  decision  and  complete 
organization;  with  its  power  of  stimulation  and 
reaction  it  is  an  important  element  in  the  process 
of  life.  All  artistic  creation  proves  the  truth  of  this, 
and  thereby  furnishes,  as  Goethe  said,  the  happiest 
assurance  of  the  eternal  harmony  of  existence.  But 
the  clearest  proof  of  it  is  the  indirect  one  from  the 
experience  of  humanity.  For  wherever  form  has 
been  despised  and  neglected,  life  has  soon  degener¬ 
ated  and  finally  sunk  into  barbarism.  Form,  with 
its  close  union  of  inner  and  outer,  is  indispensable 
in  order  to  call  forth  spiritual  life,  bring  it  to  full 
power,  and  make  it  penetrate  the  breadth  of  things. 
Hence  it  can  be  easily  understood  how  it  was  pos¬ 
sible  that  form  should  become  the  central  conception 
of  a  cult  of  immanent  idealism.”  1 

Or  again:  “Without  the  creative  activity  of  art 
there  can  be  no  successful  construction  of  an  inde¬ 
pendent  spiritual  world  in  the  human  sphere,  for 

1  “The  Life  of  the  Spirit,”  p.  205. 


292 


GREAT  ISSUES 


this  construction  involves  the  severance  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  from  the  confused  initial  situation  and  a  creative 
effort  in  contradistinction  to  it.  Would  not  a  move¬ 
ment  of  this  kind  fall  into  the  void  unless  imagina¬ 
tion  went  on  in  advance,  giving  form  to  the  invisible 
and  keeping  it  constantly  present  with  insistent, 
rousing,  and  stimulating  force?  The  importance 
of  this  is  most  clearly  shown  by  the  historical  reli¬ 
gions,  with  their  impressive  pictures  of  new  worlds, 
their  pictures  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  last 
judgment,  of  the  future  heaven  and  earth,  or  else 
of  the  endless  succession  of  worlds  —  pictures  which 
sometimes  inspired  men  with  deep  longing  and  some¬ 
times  filled  them  with  horror  and  dread.  But  in 
all  the  departments  of  life  no  essential  progress  is 
possible  unless  imagination  thus  opens  up  the  way; 
and  the  life  of  the  individual  needs  it  as  well,  for  it 
is  only  when  an  ideal  picture  of  itself  is  constructed 
and  kept  in  mind  that  this  life  can  enter  upon  an 
inner  movement  of  ascent,  and  thereby  rise  superior 
to  the  dull  routine  of  every  day.  An  activity  of  an 
artistic  nature  is  also  indispensable  for  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  what  this  inner  ascent  has  enabled  us  to 
acquire.  Such  an  activity  alone  can  extend  what 
has  been  seen  on  the  heights  to  the  whole  breadth  of 
life,  and  make  what  was  at  the  beginning  distant 
and  strange  in  the  end  near  and  familiar.  An  ar¬ 
tistic  activity  of  this  kind,  which  is  grounded  in  the 
connections  of  spiritual  reality,  cannot  be  isolated, 
in  spite  of  all  its  independence  of  other  departments 


ART 


293 


of  life,  and  cannot  lead  men  on  the  road  towards 
a  feeble  and  unnerving  aestheticism.”  1 

If  the  Professor,  then,  is  right,  art  is  not  a  matter 
of  rouge  and  castanets,  nor  the  work  of  mimes  and 
dancing  girls.  It  is  rather  a  matter  of  life  itself, 
and  must  be  undertaken  by  the  strongest  souls 
endowed  with  peculiar  gifts.  That  it  gives  such 
deep  pleasure  is  apt  to  mislead  us,  for  its  object  is 
not  pleasure.  That  it  adorns  life  makes  us  obliv¬ 
ious  of  the  fact  that  it  is  life,  a  necessary  part  of  life. 
It  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  gravest  calamities  which 
can  befall  a  people,  when  art  has  degenerated  and 
has  become  identified  with  emptiness  and  immorality. 
A  fiery  Puritanism  feels  itself  compelled  to  banish  it, 
and  in  its  banishment  human  life  degenerates. 

Puritanism  and  the  Restoration  are  swings  of 
the  pendulum.  But  Puritanism  is  nearer  to  truth 
and  beauty  than  the  Restoration,  as  even  the  most 
careless  visitor  to  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 
can  see.  For  the  sober-hued  portraits  of  Walker’s 
men  of  the  Commonwealth  are  artistically  more 
beautiful  than  the  florid  coarseness  of  Dobson’s 
men  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II. 

“  Religious  ideas  and  religious  emotions  under  the 
Puritan  habit  of  mind,”  says  Professor  Dowden, 
“seek  to  realize  themselves  not  in  art,  but  without 
any  intervening  medium  in  character,  in  conduct, 
in  life.  In  an  ordered  life,  an  ordered  household, 
an  ordered  Commonwealth  according  to  the  Puritan, 


1  Op.  cit.  p.  264. 


294 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  Spirit  is  to  be  incarnated.”  But  Milton  is  a 
perpetual  protest  against  the  falsehood  of  the  ex¬ 
treme.  He  stands  at  the  heart  of  Puritanism, 
asserting,  with  the  stoutest  of  his  compeers,  that  the 
ordered  life,  the  ordered  household,  and  the  ordered 
Commonwealth  is  the  true  incarnation  of  the  Spirit, 
but  also,  with  every  nerve  and  fibre  of  his  sensitive 
being,  declaring  how  music,  painting,  verse  are 
essential  to  the  order  of  life,  household,  or  Com¬ 
monwealth.  We  cannot  be  indifferent  to  these 
things.  The  soul  of  a  man,  and  the  soul  of  a  soci¬ 
ety,  withers  and  perishes,  unless  some  gifted  minds 
“of  imagination  all  compact”  can  body  forth  its 
ideal,  and  present  it  with  the  images  towards  which 
it  is  to  grow.  The  intrinsic  beauty  is  not  always 
visible  to  the  eye,  nor  is  the  harmony  of  the  spheres 
always  audible  to  the  ear.  The  world  looks  drab 
and  casual,  a  rapid  succession  of  vanishing  scenes 
rather  than  a  paradise  or  a  city  of  God.  The 
sounds  which  assail  the  ear  are  often  discordant,  or 
unintelligible.  The  beauty  we  thought  was  there  is 
gone,  the  music  we  thought  we  heard  is  silent. 
Discouraged  and  disillusionized  humanity  relaxes 
effort  and  stops  its  march.  Now  is  the  artist  needed. 
He  does  not  take  the  place  of  the  prophet  or  the  seer ; 
he  is  the  prophet  and  the  seer.  He  does  not  usurp 
the  work  of  evangelist  and  apostle,  but  he  is  needed 
to  bathe  the  evangel  in  the  iridescent  colours  of 
the  heavens,  and  to  carry  the  apostle  forward  to  the 
sound  of  music.  He  begins  the  high  chant  of  the 


ART 


295 


things  that  always  were  and  of  the  things  that  are 
to  be.  And  the  mighty  process  of  evolution  becomes 
an  ordered  march,  a  march  to  the  melody  of  which 
the  feet  of  men  can  move.  “Mother,”  said  a  child,  t 
as  the  military  band  marched  along  the  street,  “how 
is  it  that  the  music  makes  me  feel  happier  than  I 
am?”  The  answer  is  one  of  the  great  secrets,  and 
the  justification  of  all  great  art. 

The  artist  paints  his  picture  or  fetches  his  statue 
out  of  the  marble,  and  immediately  the  world  is 
seen  to  be  a  great  landscape  or  seascape,  blossoming, 
wind-swept,  glinting  with  light;  and  human  forms 
are  seen  to  be  beautiful,  even  divine. 

The  artist  tunes  his  orchestra  and  sounds  his 
prelude.  Then  the  great  piece  proceeds.  We  are 
at  a  high  music.  All  the  thoughts  of  men  seem  to 
be  transcended;  all  the  experiences  of  men,  the 
passion,  the  rapture,  the  sorrow,  the  pain,  are  blended 
and  harmonized.  The  world  seems  noble  and  full 
of  meaning ;  the  heavens  bend  over  it  with  conscious 
and  palpitating  stars.  The  claim  of  Abt  Vogler 
does  not  seem  to  be  extravagant.  “  God  has  a  few 
of  us  He  whispers  in  the  ear.  ’Tis  we  musicians 
know.” 

The  function  of  the  artist,  therefore,  is  not  mere 
pleasure.  It  is  the  highest  or  among  the  highest 
known  to  men.  As  Hegel  puts  it,  the  object  of  art 
in  the  State  is  to  render  visible  the  Divine,  present¬ 
ing  it  to  the  imaginative  and  intuitive  faculty.1 


1  “Philosophy  of  History,”  p.  5. 


296 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Thus,  there  have  been  times  when  the  religion  of 
a  community  has  lost  its  savour.  The  breath  has 
passed  out  of  it,  so  that  it  cumbers  the  ground  with 
arid  formulae  or  lifeless  ritual,  a  kind  of  dustheap 
to  which  none  would  resort  except  for  the  most 
terrestrial  of  reasons.  And  then  men  are  kept  in 
touch  with  God,  and  their  true  spiritual  environment, 
for  a  time,  by  the  work  of  the  artist  alone.  The 
twin  pair  of  Sirens,  music  and  verse,  or  the  imagina¬ 
tive  work  of  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  and  the  archi¬ 
tect,  or,  it  may  be,  that  attempt  to  combine  all  the 
arts  in  one,  the  drama,  will  carry  home  to  an  irre¬ 
ligious  generation  the  reality  of  religion.  The 
Divine  will  become  more  manifest  in  the  hands  of 
the  artist  than  on  the  lips  of  the  preacher. 

Yes,  great  artists  are  great  children;  they  are  the 
children  of  the  Father.  In  their  round  text-hand 
they  copy  His  legends.  Though  they  think  they 
are  playing,  amusing  themselves  and  others  with 
their  toys,  their  very  games  are  doing  what  they 
have  seen  their  Father  do.  Unknown  to  themselves 
they  render  visible  the  Divine. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  in  relation  to  art  we  have 
a  twofold  problem  which  we  do  not  very  steadily 
realize,  viz.,  to  retain  and  yet  to  restrain  it.  If  we 
cannot  restrain,  we  shall  not  retain,  it.  But  the 
retention  is  the  main  thing.  If  art  vanishes,  human 
life  degenerates  and  decays.  And  yet  if  art  is  not 
restrained  by  the  master  principles  of  life  and  hu¬ 
manity,  it  becomes  a  corruption,  instead  of  a  salva- 


ART 


297 


tion,  of  life,  and,  indeed,  imperceptibly  changes  into 
another  influence  altogether. 

For  example,  it  is  wholesome  to  remember  that 
Nero  was  above  everything  an  artist.  Art  for  art’s 
sake  was  the  principle  on  which  he  lived.  To  be 
a  musician  and  a  poet  was  more  to  him  than  to  be 
the  Imperator.  He  desired  the  bay  of  Apollo  more 
than  the  crown  of  the  Caesars.  He  scandalized 
Roman  propriety  by  entering  into  the  artistic  com¬ 
petitions  of  his  time.  The  German  Emperor  com¬ 
poses  operas,  and  his  subjects  are  pleased  with  the 
results  of  imperial  relaxation.  But  the  severity  of 
the  Roman  spirit  could  not  tolerate  an  artist  as  Em¬ 
peror.  The  contempt  of  the  artist  in  Italy  lasted 
down  to  the  Renaissance.  Benvenuto  Cellini  de¬ 
fends  Dante  for  referring  to  the  miniature  painter 
Oderisi,  not  on  the  ground  that  the  craft  of  Giotto 
and  Cimabue  deserved  recognition  among  the  great 
achievements  of  mankind,  but  on  the  ground  that 
the  love  of  glory  animates  even  the  lowliest,  “  seizes 
on  all  men  with  so  little  distinction,  that  even  lowly 
craftsmen  are  anxious  to  gain  it,  even  as  we  see  that 
painters  put  their  names  on  their  works,  as  Valerius 
writeth  of  a  famous  painting.” 

To  Italian  eyes,  Nero  degraded  himself  by  being 
an  artist  in  poetry  and  music,  and  his  pathetic  cry 
in  death,  “ Qualis  artifex  fereo!”  —  “What  an 
artist  dies  in  me!”  has  been  subject  rather  of  con¬ 
tempt  than  of  pity.  But  why  was  Nero’s  art  not  art  ? 
Why  does  the  picture  of  his  Court  and  of  his  reign 


298 


GREAT  ISSUES 


leave  upon  the  mind  a  blurred  image  of  ugliness  and 
horror?  The  most  magnificent  revival  of  classical 
splendour  in  architecture,  painting,  and  music,  and 
even  the  stage  which  presented  the  plays  of  Seneca, 
remain  in  the  memory  only  as  a  confusion  of  blood 
and  lust.  The  plain  fact  is  that  art  without  good¬ 
ness  changes  into  its  opposite.  It  becomes  “pro¬ 
curess  to  the  lords  of  hell.”  It  is  blighted  and 
blasted,  and  becomes  first  a  devastating  conflagration 
and  then  a  calcined  ruin. 

This  is  very  curious  and  interesting.  For  there 
is,  of  course,  a  sense  in  which  art  and  morality  are 
totally  distinct.  A  dominant  insistence  on  morality, 
as  Puritanism  showed,  may  repress  art.  Prudery 
may  blunt  the  perceptions  and  draw  a  veil  of  decency 
over  the  eyes,  through  which  beauty  itself  cannot  be 
seen.  A  painter  who  sets  about  a  picture  to  enforce 
a  moral  lesson,  like  a  writer  who  composes  poetry 
or  writes  a  story  with  a  didactic  purpose,  will  very 
probably  fail.  Goodness  may  be  very  inartistic 
and  may  thereby  lose  half  its  charm.  But  while 
goodness  may  be  divorced  from  art,  art  cannot  be 
divorced  from  goodness.  Licentiousness  cannot  long 
employ  art  in  her  service,  any  more  than  superstition 
can.  In  the  hands  of  debauchery  and  idolatry, 
strange  to  say,  art  quickly  dies.  In  Plato  the  good 
and  the  beautiful  are  covered  by  one  word  to  koXov. 
Shall  we  gradually  learn  to  hail  the  Platonic  lan¬ 
guage  as  an  omen?  Beauty  without  goodness  is  a 
flower  torn  from  its  root;  it  is  sure  to  wither. 


ART 


299 


This  morning  in  the  garden,  lashed  by  the  winds 
and  rain  of  March,  I  picked  up  a  crocus  which  lay 
prone.  A  sparrow  had  nipped  the  stalk  and  pecked 
the  leaves.  It  was  draggled  in  the  soil.  I  opened 
its  delicate-veined  petals,  which  were  limp  and  droop¬ 
ing.  I  laid  bare  its  heart  of  fire,  for  the  pistil  and 
the  stamens  were  still  dusted  with  golden  pollen, 
and  unconscious  of  the  ruin  which  had  befallen 
them.  And  I  saw  before  me  the  image  of  art  dis¬ 
severed  from  the  mother  earth  of  humanity  and 
goodness. 

The  truth  is  concealed  by  the  fact  that  the  cut 
flower  retains  its  apparent  life  for  a  time.  The  heart 
of  fire  burns  when  the  corolla  has  decayed.  A 
school  of  painting,  for  example,  will  survive  though 
moral  death  has  set  in.  A  strange  beauty,  as  of 
decay,  will  cling  about  it.  Then  it  will  be  said, 
“See  how  art  can  live  without  goodness,  how  your 
artists  can  be  licentious,  non-moral,  and  yet  pre¬ 
serve  the  cult  of  boauty.”  But  this  is  a  delusion 
which  vanishes  on  investigation.  The  Italian  schools 
of  painting  are  instructive.  Why  did  the  mighty 
art  of  the  Renaissance  decay?  Why  should  the 
perfection  of  Raphael,  the  subtle  omniscience  of 
Leonardo,  the  giant  strength  of  Michael  Angelo 
lead  on  to  the  pitiable  decline  of  Julio  Romano,  the 
Carracci,  Michael  Angelo  Caravaggio  ?  The  an¬ 
swer,  that  when  once  perfection  is  reached  the  suc¬ 
cessors  of  the  masters  must  overstrain  themselves 
and  plunge  into  extravagance  and  decline,  is  too 


3°° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


easy.  Too  easy,  for  surely  there  is  nothing  to  hinder 
men  of  genius  from  taking  their  own  line,  and  avoid¬ 
ing  the  fatal  error  of  imitation. 

The  explanation  lies  much  deeper.  Very  early 
in  the  Renaissance  a  profound  moral  corruption 
set  in.  With  the  models  of  Greek  Art  came  an  imita¬ 
tion  of  Greek  morals.  The  schools  of  the  painters 
were  invaded  by  impurity  and  weakened  by  hypoc¬ 
risy.  Perugino  was  Raphael’s  master.  His  sense 
of  beauty  and  technical  skill  were,  in  his  time,  un¬ 
rivalled.  The  illusion  he  produces  on  the  spectator 
is  almost  complete.  It  is  hard  to  suspect  evil  in 
the  painter  of  modest  and  delicate  virgins.  Surely 
the  soul  that  could  feel  and  represent  those  lucent 
Umbrian  skies,  with  the  blue  mountain  distances, 
and  the  dainty  poplars  pencilled  against  the  living 
light,  must  be  pure.  How  debonnair  is  the  step  of 
Tobias  and  of  the  angel?  Could  that  be  conceived 
by  a  corrupt  heart?  Our  suspicion  is  aroused, 
perhaps,  when  Michael,  the  stern  warrior  that  sub¬ 
dues  the  dragon,  is  represented  as  a  carpet  knight, 
whose  armour  is  undinted,  whose  curls  are  unruffled, 
by  the  combat.  But  the  transparent  clearness 
and  purity  of  colour  deceive  us.  We  fancy  Pietro 
a  devotee,  kneeling  before  the  Madonna,  whom  he 
worshipfully  paints,  and  joining  already  in  the  can¬ 
ticle  of  his  white-robed  angels  that  wheel  and  sing 
on  their  filmy  ground  of  summer  clouds.  But  the 
secret  is  out  in  Vasari:  “ He  was  a  person  of  scant 
religion,  and  never  could  get  himself  to  believe  in  the 


ART 


301 


immortality  of  the  soul ;  wherefore  with  words  suited 
to  his  own  flinty  brain  he  most  obstinately  rejected 
all  good  doctrine.  He  had  all  his  hope  in  the  gifts 
of  fortune;  and  for  money  he  would  have  under¬ 
taken  to  do  any  ill  deed.”  Here  was  the  seed 
of  decay.  Raphael’s  personal  elevation,  Michael 
Angelo’s  titanic  religious  faith  and  life  of  austere 
self-contempt,  could  not  arrest  the  germs  of  evil 
that  were  latent  in  the  schools  of  the  Renaissance. 

It  is  noticeable  that  a  wave  of  spiritual  life  and 
moral  reformation,  like  that  which  flowed  from 
Savonarola,  would  arrest  judgment  and  temporarily 
save  art.  Lorenzo  da  Credi  and  Sandro  Botticelli 
submitted  to  the  regenerating  influence  of  the  move¬ 
ment.  In  those  pure  Madonnas  of  the  one,  with  the 
vases  of  flowers,  and  the  glimpses  into  holy  country 
scenes,  and  in  those  circling  hosts  around  the  throne, 
of  the  other,  showing  this  common  earth,  even  this 
actual  Florence,  with  the  open  lilied  tomb,  over¬ 
mastered  by  the  ranks  and  companies  of  saints, 
martyrs,  doctors,  principalities,  and  powers,  earth 
filled  with  heaven,  we  are  aware  how  art  revives 
and  recovers  its  beauty  when  it  is  brought  again  into 
contact  with  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  spiritual. 

But  the  moral  corruption  of  the  Renaissance 
was  the  ruin  of  its  art.  Beauty  cannot  live  in  an 
atmosphere  of  intrigue,  assassination,  and  shameless 
greed.  Italy  is  beautiful.  Her  cerulean  seas  and 
azure  skies;  her  lofty  peaks,  often  crowned  with 
cities;  her  rivers,  fed  by  the  snows;  her  pines, 


302 


GREAT  ISSUES 


her  cypresses,  her  ilexes,  her  oleanders,  oranges,  and 
arbutus,  endow  her  with  a  loveliness  which  never 
can  decay.  Virgil’s  passionate  love  is  echoed  in 
every  observant  heart  that  visits  her  still,  as  it  sees 
with  rapture 

“Tot  congesta  manu  praeruptis  oppida  saxis, 
Fluminaque  antiquos  subterlabentia  muros.”  1 

Moreover,  every  city  of  the  enchanted  land  is 
filled  with  memorials  of  former  greatness.  Ruined 
viaducts  and  triumphal  arches  span  the  plains  and 
roads.  Vast  amphitheatres  still  render  faint  echoes 
of  the  plaudits  of  an  assembled  city.  Churches, 
sculptured,  pictured  with  mosaic,  white  against  the 
blue  sky,  rising  serene  above  the  crowded  streets 
and  lanes;  palaces,  ramparted,  grilled,  with  foun- 
tained  courtyards,  glimpses  of  perpetual  green  and 
whispering  shade;  terraces,  gardens,  with  statues 
and  marble  seats,  and  soft  distances  of  hill  and 
plain,  speak  of  the  toil,  the  passion,  the  faith  of 
the  past.  Every  city  has  its  galleries  of  paintings 
and  sculptures.  Almost  every  church  has  its  treas¬ 
ured  masterpiece.  It  is  the  land  sacred  to  beauty. 

And  yet  modern  Italian  painting  is  muddy  and 
trivial  and  coarse,  without  elevation  of  subject, 
without  beauty  of  line  or  colour.  The  Italians 
are  engaged  in  socialistic  agitation,  in  struggles  for 
clerical  domination,  and  chiefly  in  comic  opera  and 

1  “The  cities  piled  along  precipitous  peaks, 

And  rivers  lapsing  under  ancient  walls.” 


ART 


3°3 


melodrama,  apparently  unconscious  of  their  past, 
and  untouched  by  the  beauty  which  surrounds  them. 
It  is  evident  that  art  is  the  product  of  moral  forces, 
and  decays  when  goodness  dies.  Not  even  the 
splendid  monuments  of  the  past  can  revive  it. 
Blurred  eyes  and  palsied  hands  cannot  profit  by 
the  examples  of  loveliness  which  were  created  by 
hearts  that  felt  the  impulse  of  the  Divine,  and  learnt 
to  paint  by  learning  to  pray. 

Perhaps  the  moral  foundations  of  art  can  be  dis¬ 
covered  also  in  the  modern  schools  of  France.  The 
schools  which  produced  Corot  and  Millet  should 
be  vital  and  inspiring.  No  eye  ever  saw  more  truly 
than  Corot’s  the  silvery  beauty  of  a  landscape 
under  the  delicate  drooping  of  trees,  crossed  by  gentle 
rivers.  No  heart  ever  felt  more  keenly  than  Millet’s 
the  pathos  of  labour  and  the  humble  piety  which 
sheds  light  and  romance  on  the  bare  furrows  of  the 
field.  But  Corot  and  Millet  were  religious  men, 
and  exceptions;  the  schools  of  France  have  taken 
a  different  course.  The  life  of  art-students  is  eman¬ 
cipated  from  moral  restraints,  and  defies  not  only 
religion,  but  decency.  The  result  was  apparent  in 
the  instructive  comparison  of  the  French  and  English 
schools,  when  the  pictures  of  the  two  were  placed 
side  by  side  in  the  Franco-British  Exhibition  of 
1908. 

Possibly  the  first  impression  made  by  the  French 
pictures  was  the  muddiness  of  their  colours.  The 
next  was  the  ugliness  of  the  portraits.  Then,  one 


GREAT  ISSUES 


3°  4 

realized  the  poverty  of  subjects.  The  Church 
furnished  a  few  picturesque  processions  and  cere¬ 
monies.  For  the  rest,  the  Casino,  the  boulevard, 
and  the  bath-room  of  women  seemed  the  chief  stock- 
in-trade.  If  mankind  should  begin  to  weary  of 
nakedness  and  shame,  where  would  French  art  be? 
I  can  never  forget  the  bewilderment  with  which  I 
stood  before  a  picture  which  in  the  catalogue  was 
marked  “  Beauty.”  It  represented,  against  a  dun 
background,  a  semi-nude  woman,  with  long,  wiry 
hair,  of  the  kind  which  one  associates  with  savages. 
There  was  no  beauty  of  feature.  The  flesh  was  not 
beautifully  painted,  in  the  way  that  makes  Velas¬ 
quez’s  Venus  beautiful,  in  spite  of  itself.  No  beauty 
of  form  or  colour  or  idea.  A  coarse,  ugly,  soulless 
woman,  with  brindled  hair  and  inadequate  gar¬ 
ments  —  this  was  Beauty.  Why  ?  When  goodness 
fades  out  of  the  brain,  when  purity,  love,  and  the 
excellences  of  the  soul  cease  to  please,  what  is  left 
for  art  is  only  lust  and  its  sickening  reaction.  Beauty 
cannot  long  survive  when  goodness  has  been  per¬ 
mitted  to  die. 

Art  is  a  necessary  activity  of  the  human  spirit, 
an  attempt  to  express  the  life  of  the  universe,  the 
soul  of  things,  manifesting  itself  in  many  forms, 
the  human  form  among  the  rest.  It  is  as  necessarily 
connected  with  God  as  man  is.  If  man  must  be 
good,  if  morality  is  only  the  formulated  doctrine 
of  his  goodness,  art  must  be  good  too.  If  it  loses 
touch  with  goodness,  it  loses  touch  with  life  and  with 


ART 


3°5 


reality.  Directly  it  becomes  indifferent  to  the  good 
it  becomes  blind.  Seeing  only  the  evil  and  driven 
by  the  impulse  to  imitate  or  to  reproduce,  it  eliminates 
the  good,  and  reproduces  plastically  the  evil,  only 
the  evil.  It  calls  itself  impressionist  or  realist.  It 
eschews  idealism.  But  under  these  morbid  and 
debased  conditions  its  only  impressions  are  the 
passing,  the  evanescent,  the  unimportant.  It  gets 
no  impression  of  the  noble,  the  eternal,  the  exalting, 
which  runs  through  life  and  the  world.  Its  realism 
does  not  mean  that  it  depicts  what  is  real.  The 
real  is  far  indeed  from  seeing;  this  art  has  become 
radically  incapable  even  of  understanding  it.  What 
it  mistakes  for  the  real  is  that  selection  of  coarse¬ 
ness  and  ugliness  and  corruption  which  its  own 
diseased  sight  is  alone  capable  of  seeing. 

Perhaps,  then,  we  begin  to  see  an  answer  to  the 
question  why,  with  all  the  examples  of  beauty  before 
us,  we  do  not  necessarily  produce  or  love  the  beauti¬ 
ful.  We  are  puzzled  why  an  Academy  should  be 
trivial,  cheap,  and  thin,  when  all  the  artists  had 
access  to  the  National  Gallery,  and  most  of  them 
have  studied  in  France  or  Italy.  We  wonder  why, 
with  Westminster  or  Chartres  before  them,  the 
architects  of  to-day  cannot  build  beautiful  houses, 
why  the  public  buildings  of  our  towns  are  for  the 
most  part  ambitious  imitations  of  the  worst  features 
of  past  styles.  We  ask  why  our  furniture  is  not 
beautiful  when  our  workmen  have  all  the  best  models 
to  imitate.  How  comes  it  that,  with  all  that  has  been 


x 


3°6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


said  and  written  on  art  in  the  last  half-century,  we 
build  nothing  like  the  Doge’s  Palace,  and  cannot 
even  rival  our  own  painters  of  a  century  ago, 
Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  Romney,  or  Constable? 

The  answer  is  that  by  the  most  misguided  teach¬ 
ing  on  the  subject  art  has  been  separated  from  life, 
from  goodness,  and  from  God.  In  that  isolation  it 
rapidly  becomes  idolatrous;  it  takes  the  place  of 
God,  of  goodness,  and  of  life.  It  is  not  religious, 
but  becomes  a  religion.  But  when  this  occurs  art 
declines;  its  peculiar  possession  of  beauty  slips  out 
of  its  hands. 

That  is  a  strange  passage  in  “The  Stones  of 
Venice,”  1  not  sufficiently  explained  by  Ruskin’s 
admitted  inconsistencies  and  contradictions,  in 
which  he  wonders  whether  art  is  a  real  minister 
of  religion:  “I  do  not  know,  as  I  have  repeatedly 
stated,  how  far  the  splendour  of  architecture  or 
other  art  is  'compatible  with  the  honesty  and  use¬ 
fulness  of  religious  service.  The  longer  I  live  the 
more  I  incline  to  severe  judgment  in  this  matter, 
and  the  less  I  can  trust  the  sentiments  excited  by 
painted  glass  and  coloured  tiles.  But  if  there  be, 
indeed,  value  in  such  things,  our  plain  duty  is  to 
direct  our  strength  against  the  superstition  which 
has  dishonoured  them;  since  there  are  thousands 
to  whom  they  are  now  merely  an  offence  owing  to 
their  association  with  absurd  or  idolatrous  cere¬ 
monies.  I  have  but  this  exhortation  for  all  who 

1  Appendix,  xii.  p.  371. 


ART 


3°  7 


love  them,  not  to  regulate  their  creeds  by  their  taste 
in  colours,  but  to  hold  calmly  to  the  right  at  whatever 
present  cost  to  their  imaginative  enjoyment;  sure 
that  they  will  one  day  find  in  heavenly  truth  a  brighter 
charm  than  in  earthly  imagery,  and  striving  chiefly 
to  gather  stones  for  the  eternal  building,  whose 
walls  shall  be  salvation  and  whose  gates  shall  be 
praise.” 

How  wise  is  this  from  the  greatest  lover  and 
exponent  of  art  in  the  nineteenth  century !  A  doubt 
invades  the  mind  in  some  quiet  cathedral  city,  where 
the  trim  decencies  of  the  present  enshrine  the  pieties 
and  the  art  of  six  hundred  years.  For  this  ex¬ 
quisite  and  storied  building  does  not  produce  or 
conserve  a  progressive  religion.  Round  its  venerable 
walls,  close  to  its  sculptured  portals,  human  poverty 
and  depravity  and  unbelief  surge  and  beat  defiantly. 
Even  in  the  sleepy  and  corrupt  community  which 
has  gathered  about  the  beautiful  monument  of 
religion  the  vital  religious  work  is  probably  being 
done  in  some  building  devoid  of  beauty,  or  in  no 
building  at  all. 

It  all  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  “Art  for 
art’s  sake”  is  an  impossible  formula.  Nothing, 
not  even  art,  liveth  to  itself.  When  art  is  for  art’s 
sake  it  ceases  to  be  art.  Art  is  for  life’s  sake,  for 
truth’s  sake,  for  goodness’  sake,  for  God’s  sake,  or 
it  dies.  It  is  the  crested  and  iridescent  foam  upon 
the  waters  of  life,  beautiful,  as  it  is  thrown  up  by 
the  deep,  swiftly  moving  and  proudly  chafing  stream, 


3°8 


GREAT  ISSUES 


perpetual  as  the  stream  and  as  the  sunshine  into 
which  its  crystal  beads  are  flung.  But  in  vain  shall 
you  attempt  to  separate  this  delicate  curtain  of  spray, 
or  this  gurgling  joy  of  tumultuous  foam,  from  the 
river  which  produces  it.  By  the  time  it  is  separated 
it  has  lost  its  beauty,  it  has  even  ceased  to  be.  As 
it  is  flung  up  by  the  infinite  yearning  and  onward 
striving  of  the  spirit  of  man,  its  vitality  depends 
upon  his  life,  its  beauty  comes  from  his  beauty, 
its  object  is  to  keep  him  alive  to  the  Divine  atmos¬ 
phere  in  which  he  moves. 

George  Meredith  says  of  a  brook  that  “it  filled  the 
lonely  place  with  one  onward  voice.”  Art  is  “the 
onward  voice”  of  the  stream  of  life.  Its  music  and 
its  iridescence,  its  passion,  its  joy,  lead  him  into  his 
future,  accomplish  for  him  his  destiny. 

It  is  this  which  enables  us  to  see  the  bearing  of 
that  other  problem,  how  to  retain  the  art,  which 
admittedly  we  must  restrain,  how  to  save  it  from 
corruption,  from  the  silence  which  has  sometimes 
fallen  on  its  music,  from  the  pallid  death  which  has 
sometimes  dimmed  its  hues.  It  must  be  evident 
now  that  art  is  not  an  extra  in  the  school  of  life, 
but  a  necessary  part  of  the  curriculum.  It  ranks 
with  religion,  and  with  morality;  it  is  the  blossom 
of  life.  Its  loss  implies  deterioration  and  decay; 
its  perversion  is  death. 

First  of  all,  for  each  person  it  is  necessary  to 
train  and  cherish  the  sense  of  beauty,  and  to  develop 
whatever  artistic  faculties  may  be  in  him.  It  may 


ART 


3°9 

seem  dogmatic  to  assert  that  there  is  an  absolute 
standard  of  beauty:  for  it  has  become  an  axiom 
among  men  that  there  is  no  disputing  about  tastes. 
But  the  margin  of  variations  in  taste  no  more  dis¬ 
turbs  the  absoluteness  of  beauty,  than  the  very 
similar  margin  of  variations  in  moral  ideas  disturbs 
the  absoluteness  of  morality.  If  we  may  use  the 
language  of  transcendentalism,  that  which  is  beauti¬ 
ful  to  God  is  really  beautiful;  and  the  object  of  all 
culture  is  to  bring  the  human  mind  into  harmony 
with  the  Divine.  It  is  a  toilsome  and  even  a  tedious 
task.  At  first  we  count  as  beautiful  garish  colours, 
extravagant  sounds,  bombastic  absurdities.  Un¬ 
affected  by  the  beauties  of  Nature  we  are  captivated 
with  a  pantomime.  The  ingenuous  girl  who  saw 
a  moonlight  effect  in  crossing  the  Atlantic,  and 
exclaimed,  “That’s  as  good  as  a  transformation 
scene  in  a  theatre,”  represents  the  untrained  childish¬ 
ness  from  which  it  is  the  object  of  education  to  de¬ 
liver  us. 

But  we  are  really  educated  just  as  we  genuinely 
feel  the  beauty  of  what  is  beautiful,  and  are  in¬ 
stinctively  critical  towards  spurious  or  imperfect 
beauty. 

I  listened  with  interest  the  other  day  to  a  young 
man’s  remarks  on  the  “atrocity”  of  Giovanni 
Bellini’s  “Garden  of  Gethsemane”  in  the  National 
Gallery.  He  was  perfectly  candid  and  open,  and 
of  course  the  day  will  dawn  when  that  faint  flush 
of  sunset  in  the  West,  the  piled  order  of  the  town 


3IQ 


GREAT  ISSUES 


on  the  hill,  the  soldiers  in  the  middle  distance,  the 
sleeping  three  in  the  foreground,  and  in  the  centre, 
on  the  bare  rock  of  prayer,  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 
meekly  accepting  the  “cup,”  which  the  ministering 
angel  brings  to  him  from  heaven,  will  strike  home 
to  the  mind  of  my  young  friend  as  a  moment  in  the 
history  of  landscape,  and  as  an  eternal  revelation 
of  the  mystery  of  love.  But  life  must  teach  him. 

In  view  of  the  necessity  of  art  a  country  should 
not  waste  its  artists.  It  is  pathetic  to  know  the 
struggles  of  the  great  painters;  Richard  Wilson 
dying  unrecognized,  Holman  Hunt  living  down  two 
generations  of  derision.  The  artists  are  generally 
children  of  artisans,  born  in  humble  circumstances, 
and  condemned  to  a  struggle  from  the  beginning. 
Gainsborough  and  Morland  are  not  born  in  the 
purple.  Corot  was  the  son  of  a  barber.  Wealth 
and  ease  discourage  the  strenuous  discipline  which 
is  necessary  to  high  achievement.  But  it  is  a  ca¬ 
lamity  if  an  eye  which  sees,  as  Turner  does,  a  colour 
sense  which  could  produce  the  effects  of  Opie,  a 
hand  which  can  carve  a  frieze,  or  a  heart  which  can 
conceive  a  new  melody,  should  be  lost  to  the  world 
through  the  indifference  of  the  public  or  the  faults 
of  an  educational  system.  To  see  and  to  appreciate 
beautiful  things  is  a  gift  which  might  be  cultivated 
in  many,  but  to  produce  them  is  a  gift  of  more  limited 
distribution.  And  we  cannot  afford  to  lose  a  single 
hand,  or  eye,  or  mind,  which  is  capable  of  repre¬ 
senting  the  divine  to  men,  and  of  becoming  the  in- 


ART 


311 

terpreter  of  life  to  those  who  only  through  art  can 
learn. 

The  intense  delight  of  painting,  and  the  con¬ 
venience  of  easel  pictures,  have  partly  obscured  the 
function  of  art  in  beautifying  the  home,  and  in  mak¬ 
ing  even  a  small  house  the  fit  abode  and  school  of 
human  spirits.  But  beauty  inwrought  in  the  shape 
and  furniture  of  rooms,  in  the  outlook  from  windows, 
in  the  aspect  of  the  house  and  garden,  has  more 
constant  and  beneficial  effect  than  beauty  shut  up 
in  an  art  gallery,  or  even  artificially  hung  upon  hooks. 
I  stayed  once  in  a  house,  which  remains  in  my 
memory  as  a  vista  into  worlds  of  visionary  beauty. 
For  over  the  mantelshelf  of  my  chamber  a  daughter 
of  the  house  had  painted  the  “Water  Babies.” 
In  a  long  sweep  of  gaily  breaking  waves,  the  tiny 
creatures  danced:  their  auburn  locks  floated  and 
mingled  with  the  tresses  of  the  breakers,  their  bodies 
seemed  to  sweep  and  swirl  with  the  pliant  waters, 
and  to  wreathe  themselves  in  the  eddies  of  the  foam 
and  the  rapture  of  the  spray.  Their  wide  eyes 
of  wonder,  innocence,  and  delight  looked  down  on 
the  fortunate  sleeper  in  that  room.  Here  was  Art 
doing  her  prescribed  service  to  weary  and  world- 
worn  men,  bringing  them  back  to  the  freshness  of 
their  dawn,  and  awaking  in  them  their  mysterious 
connection  with  the  unknown  forms  of  being  which 
haunted  our  entrance,  and  await  our  exit,  from  this 
transitory  scene. 

Where  the  spirit  of  beauty  works,  a  tiny  house 


312 


GREAT  ISSUES 


may  be  made  just  as  lovely  as  a  palace.  Nor  is  it 
a  matter  of  expense.  A  flower,  a  fold  of  drapery, 
a  patch  of  colour,  an  unexpected  decoration  on  a  door 
panel,  a  mere  arrangement  of  lines  and  curves,  may 
suffice  to  give  distinction  to  a  small  suburban  house. 
As  the  scarf  of  red  on  the  shoulders  of  Ariadne  in 
Titian’s  picture  is  said  to  be  the  most  wonderful 
piece  of  red  in  the  world  —  though  in  itself  it  is  such 
a  red  as  you  may  see  anywhere,  even  in  a  shambles 
—  so  this  fine  sense  of  the  beautiful  can  by  a  touch 
light  up  and  redeem  the  commonest  apartment. 
And  it  is  beauty,  not  brought  from  without  by  un¬ 
thinking  wealth,  but  evolved  from  within  by  hearts 
that  feel  and  love,  which  makes  the  charm  and  the 
spiritual  value  of  a  home. 

And  if  it  be  important  to  invest  the  home  with 
beauty,  to  make  it  at  once  the  expression  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  souls  that  inhabit  it  as  their  tem¬ 
porary  tabernacle  in  their  journey,  it  is  even  more 
pressing  to  make  the  towns  and  the  cities  in  which 
more  than  three-quarters  of  our  people  live  radiant 
and  significant,  rich  in  suggestion  of  a  storied  past 
or  in  hope  of  a  noble  future.  It  would  seem  that 
only  religion  can  make  a  city  beautiful.  But  art 
is  the  means  which  religion  should  employ.  For 
a  city  made  spiritually  beautiful,  and  kept  so,  by 
an  informing  spirit,  is  the  nurse  of  great  men  and 
gracious  women ;  while  a  city  which  is  foul  and  ugly 
stunts  where  it  does  not  defile,  degrades  where  it 
does  not  ruin,  the  character  of  its  people. 


ART 


3I3 


The  great  cities  were  beautiful  by  reason  of  the 
service  of  God,  and  beauty  will  not  again  be  possible 
in  architecture  and  city-making  until  men  can  see 
again  with  Plato  a  city  in  the  heavens,  and  with  John 
the  Divine  that  city  in  the  heavens  coming  down 
to  the  earth.  It  was  religion,  sincere  and  passionate, 
which  built  the  Parthenon,  the  Erechtheum,  the 
Propylaea,  and  the  Nike  Apteros,  to  crown  the 
Acropolis  of  Athens.  No  Athenian  could  work  in 
his  house,  chaffer  in  the  market,  or  assemble  in  the 
Pnyx,  but  he  was  confronted  with  the  majesty  and 
beauty  of  the  divinities.  High  above  the  common 
life  of  men  was  the  life  of  the  gods.  Gazing  towards 
Helicon,  with  a  sweep  over  the  purple  sea,  Athene 
watched  her  worshippers  and  breathed  into  them 
the  wisdom  and  the  passion  which  have  made  Athens 
the  intellectual  mistress  of  the  world.  How  could 
an  Athenian  be  common  or  unclean,  when  through 
that  translucent  ether,  against  the  living  blue,  struck 
with  the  glory  of  sunrise  or  sunset,  he  saw  ever,  in  ivory 
and  gold,  the  stainless  symbol  of  purity  and  wisdom 
which  the  heart  of  Phidias  conceived  and  the  hand 
of  Phidias  executed? 

High  over  Florence  rose  the  Duomo,  looking  down 
on  the  little  baptistery  of  San  Giovanni,  out  of  which 
had  risen  the  city’s  growing  glory,  and  flanked  by 
Giotto’s  tower,  like  a  flower  in  stone.  Hard  by  in 
St.  Mark’s  Savonarola  lived  and  burned;  there 
Fra  Angelico  saw  his  angels,  and  fastened  his  visions 
on  the  walls.  Santa  Croce  on  the  one  side,  decorated 


GREAT  ISSUES 


31 4 

by  Giotto,  contained  the  monuments  of  the  great 
dead;  Santa  Maria  Novella  on  the  other  held  to 
the  light  the  golden  glory  of  Ghirlandajo,  and  in 
the  dark  vaults  underneath  the  dream  of  Simone 
Memmi,  the  education  of  the  youth  of  Florence 
conceived  as  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost. 
Such  a  city  produced  great  artists,  and  was  made 
by  them;  Cimabue,  Orcagna,  Giotto,  Donatello, 
Brunelleschi,  Ghiberti,  Fra  Angelico,  Fra  Bartolom¬ 
meo,  Lippo  Lippi,  leading  up  to  Buonarotti,  Botti¬ 
celli,  and  Luca  della  Robbia.  Even  now,  when  the 
spirit  of  Dante’s  city  is  flown,  and  the  monuments 
of  the  great  past  look  down  on  the  sordid  materialism 
and  the  trivial  pleasures  of  modern  Italy,  a  visitor 
can  look  through  Casa  Guidi’s  windows  or  through 
any  other  windows  in  Florence,  and  see  the  power 
of  great  men  to  build  noble  cities  and  the  power  of 
noble  cities  to  make  men  great. 

A  city  cannot  be  great  whose  chief  building  is 
a  newspaper  office  or  a  music-hall.  In  vain  will  the 
hills  curve  its  streets,  and  the  suggestions  of  the  sea 
bring  health  and  expansion  to  body  and  soul,  if 
individual  greed  is  allowed  to  determine  the  build¬ 
ings  which  shall  be  reared,  and  to  poison  its  air  with 
smoke  or  chemicals,  and  its  moral  atmosphere  with 
heartlessness  and  lawless  pleasure. 

There  must  be  a  president  beauty  in  the  ordering 
and  laying  out  of  its  squares  and  thoroughfares,  of 
its  central  business  houses  and  of  its  suburban 
dwellings,  a  spirit  which  readily  controls  the  wilful- 


ART 


3*5 


ness  and  selfishness  of  its  citizens,  if  it  is  to  be  great. 
Its  river  must  be  saved  from  pollution,  and  the  banks 
must  be  adorned  with  terraces  and  the  statues  of 
noble  men  and  women.  The  open  spaces  must 
be  planted  with  trees  and  flowers.  The  streets  must 
be  clean,  and  intelligible.  Old  buildings  which  are 
beautiful  must  be  preserved  as  treasure;  buildings 
which  do  not  contribute  to  the  harmony  of  the 
whole  must  be  disallowed  or  condemned.  Especially 
the  homes  of  the  poor  must  be  guarded  against  the 
disease  and  the  dirt  which  are  the  cruel  fate  of 
poverty,  and  from  the  temptations  which  produce 
and  seal  the  degradation  of  the  weak  and  helpless. 

Such  a  city,  whether  large  or  small,  becomes  the 
delight  of  those  who  visit  it  and  the  education  of 
those  who  dwell  in  it.  Thither  the  tribes  go  up;  its 
blest  inhabitants  beautify  the  place  of  God’s  feet. 
For  it  must  be  evident  to  every  reflecting  mind 
that  such  a  city  can  never  be,  unless  it  is  a  city  of 
God.  God  must  control  the  selfishness  and  inspire 
the  dulness  of  men,  before  they  can  conceive  or 
achieve  such  a  city.  God  must  be  the  glory  in  the 
midst  and  a  wall  of  fire  round  about.  For  we  cannot 
build  a  city  of  God  on  earth  except  in  so  far  as  it 
descends  out  of  heaven. 

Finally,  art  must  come  to  the  service  of  religion, 
not  only  in  ordering  the  life  of  men,  but  in  beautify¬ 
ing  the  worship  of  God.  Notwithstanding  the  doubt 
which  invaded  the  mind  of  Ruskin,  and  made  him 
suspect  the  religious  value  of  architecture,  and 


3l6 


GREAT  ISSUES 


painting,  and  music,  in  worship,  the  irrepressible 
instinct  of  mankind  must  be  allowed.  The  mischief 
appears  when  the  art  is  summoned  for  pride  and 
vainglory,  when  the  artist  offers  his  service  only 
for  money,  when  God  fades  out  of  the  mind,  and  the 
aesthetic  effects  are  offered  as  a  substitute  for  Him. 
Then  religion  sinks  into  idolatry;  art  is  defiled,  and 
indeed  disappears. 

But  art  has  its  place  in  worship,  and  worship  is 
incomplete  without  it.  The  mind  which  is  truly 
religious  finds  it  intolerable  to  live  in  ceiled  houses 
while  the  house  of  the  Lord  lies  desolate.  It  is 
necessary  to  worship  God;  and  the  heart  adds  ‘‘in 
the  beauty  of  holiness”;  yes,  in  beauty,  such  beauty 
as  we  can  command  or  express.  That  region  of 
delight  which  is  made  by  music  and  painting,  by 
beautiful  words  in  rhythm,  chanted,  recited,  or  sung, 
by  sweet  odours  and  harmony  of  movement,  is  the 
Gate  Beautiful  of  the  Temple.  In  that  porch  we 
may  not  linger,  but  we  may  fitly  pass  through  it 
when  we  pray. 

It  need  not  be  ostentatious  or  self-pleasing;  but 
the  heart’s  love  set  on  God,  and  eager  to  praise  Him, 
seeking  some  adequate  expression  of  its  mingled 
reverence  and  delight,  beats  about  for  forms  of  ex¬ 
pression.  For  it  knows  that  its  efforts  will  always 
be  inadequate,  and  its  expressions  will  fall  short  of 
the  intention.  Therefore  it  takes  hold  of  all  that 
seems  the  most  noble  and  exalted,  in  form,  or  colour, 
or  sound,  and  draws  near  to  God  in  the  house  of 


ART 


3*7 


solemnities,  where  the  light  streams  through  storied 
panes;  it  uses  the  language  of  poetry  and  sets  it  to 
music  for  its  praise,  and  offers  the  incense  of  flowers 
for  its  prayer.  Knowing  that  all  will  come  short, 
it  yet  does  what  it  can  to  make  the  place  of  His  feet 
glorious.  It  is  not  ritual;  it  is  not  lip-service.  But 
religion  has  called  her  handmaid  Art  —  busy  as 
she  is  in  the  service  of  man  —  to  see  if  she  can  do 
anything  to  help  in  the  service  of  God. 

I  must  close  with  a  curious  experience,  one  of 
those  coincidences  in  life  which  incline  one  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  chance  or  accident,  but  only  the  un¬ 
folding  of  a  precedent  design. 

I  was  asked  to  preach  in  a  school  chapel  on  the 
annual  prize  day.  I  found  that  one  of  the  features 
of  the  occasion  was  the  unveiling  of  a  window,  the 
completion  of  a  series  which  represented  the  life  of 
Jesus.  When  the  unveiling  took  place  I  found  my¬ 
self  by  accident  close  to  the  artist  who  designed  the 
windows.  He  turned  to  me  and  said:  “You  did 
not  know  that  you  had  any  part  in  these  windows,  but 
you  had.  Some  years  ago  I  heard  you  preach  on 
Giotto’s  frescoes  in  the  Arena  chapel  at  Padua.  I 
thought  to  myself,  ‘Nothing  would  please  me  more 
than  to  have  the  opportunity  of  decorating  a  chapel 
in  that  way.’  At  last  the  opportunity  came.  I 
cannot  tell  you  what  it  has  been  to  me;  for  the  study 
of  our  Lord’s  life,  in  order  to  make  these  designs, 
has  given  me  a  new  and  wonderful  conception  of  Him. 
And  now,  when  the  whole  series  is  completed,  you 


GREAT  ISSUES 


3l8 

come  and  preach  in  the  chapel,  and  see  the  execution 
of  the  thought  which  your  words  inspired.” 

It  would  seem  sometimes  that  God  Himself  is 
the  great  Artist;  and  we,  ourselves  and  our  lives, 
are  His  workmanship,  His  artistic  creation,  poem, 
or  music,  or  painting,  and  that  the  artistic  sense 
within  us  is  derived  from  what  we  have  the  likest 
God  within  the  soul. 


CHAPTER  XI 


LIFE 

“Debilem  facito  manu, 

Debilem  pede,  coxa, 

Tuber  adstrue  gibborum, 

Lubricos  quate  dentes, 

Vita  dum  superest,  bene  est, 

Hanc  mihi,  vel  acuti 
Si  sedeam  cruce,  sustine.,, 

—  Maecenas. 

This  sentiment  of  the  Epicurean  Maecenas  is  not 
at  first  blush  very  admirable:  “Let  me  be  feeble 
in  hand,  feeble  in  foot  and  thigh;  pile  a  hunch  on 
my  back,  shake  my  teeth  crazy;  while  life  lasts, 
all  is  well;  that,  though  I  should  straddle  a  cross, 
however  sharp,  maintain  for  me.”  No,  it  sounds 
like  a  craven  love  of  life.  And  we  acknowledge  that 
life  is  not  to  be  desired  too  passionately  nor  pur¬ 
chased  at  too  great  a  cost.  In  theory  we  are  all 
agreed  that  a  man  should  be  ready  to  resign  his  life 
for  a  worthy  object,  and  should  not  cling  to  it  when 
it  has  ceased  to  be  valuable. 

But  from  another  point  of  view  the  verses  of 
Maecenas  are  worthy  of  his  fame  as  the  leader  of 
culture  and  the  patron  of  literature  at  the  Court 

3l9 


32° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  Augustus.  They  express  with  amazing  energy, 
not  to  say  fierceness,  the  truth  that  lies  in  Epi¬ 
cureanism,  the  joie  de  vivre  which  is  or  ought  to  be 
a  fundamental  fact  of  the  world.  Life  is  very  good. 
To  be  alive  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  devout  gratitude. 
Every  living  creature  should  each  day  offer  a 
sacrifice  of  praise  to  the  Source  and  Giver  of  life. 
Creatures  that  have  no  capacity  to  see  beyond  the 
sun  may  suitably  render  worship  to  that  apparent 
origin  of  our  existence.  Creatures  that  are  able  to 
penetrate  to  the  ultimate  cause  of  that  mediate  agent 
must  give  thanks  to  God.  Indeed,  the  instinct  of 
praise  in  consciousness  itself  for  being  conscious 
compels  a  belief  in  a  consciousness  to  which  life  is 
due.  We  find  God  in  thanksgiving.  The  praise 
which  life  breathes  for  the  gift  of  life  is  the  intuitive 
evidence  of  the  Giver. 

But  life  is  certainly  very  good.  The  diseased 
cling  to  it,  in  spite  of  their  sufferings,  the  poor  cling 
to  it  when  they  are  deprived  of  all  comforts.  On 
the  Thames  Embankment  —  to  the  shame  of  our 
civilization  —  there  are  crouched  every  night  the 
homeless  waifs  of  the  city.  They  are  in  rags,  they 
are  unfed,  they  are  hopeless.  They  huddle  on  the 
seats,  in  the  frost,  in  the  rain,  in  the  clammy  fog  of 
London.  If  the  sun  shines  by  day,  these  forlorn 
outcasts  of  the  social  system  fling  themselves  on  the 
turf  of  the  parks,  and  they  lie  in  all  directions  like 
slain  soldiers  after  an  engagement.  They  are  in¬ 
deed  the  victims  of  the  fierce  competitive  battle  of 


LIFE 


321 


modern  industrialism.  Life  is  for  them  reduced  to 
its  lowest  terms;  they  have  life  and  nothing  else, 
nothing  to  ameliorate  or  adorn  it,  nothing  to  give  it 
value  beyond  what  it  possesses  in  itself.  But  life  is 
to  them  sweet.  They  do  not  plunge  themselves  into 
the  turbid  river  and  permit  the  ebbing  tide  to  carry 
them  out  into  the  blissful  Nirvana  of  the  sea.  They 
do  not  beg  a  copper  to  buy  a  dose  of  poison,  and  so 
end  the  weary  struggle.  Is  it  the  interest  of  the 
struggle,  the  struggle  to  keep  alive,  which  gives  them 
energy  to  hold  on?  No,  it  is  the  positive  sweetness 
of  living  itself.  I  fell  into  conversation  with  one  of 
those  wastrels  the  other  day.  A  more  pitiable  object 
could  not  be  seen.  Hardly  a  rag  held  its  place  with 
security.  Unkempt  and  cadaverous,  he  might  have 
been  a  scarecrow  set  to  guard  the  crops  from  the 
birds.  But  he  was  far  from  miserable.  Strange  to 
say,  he  was  an  American  citizen,  with  the  American 
firmness  and  deliberation  of  speech,  and  the  Ameri¬ 
can  sense  of  dignity  and  equality.  For  ten  years  he 
had  lived  the  wastrel  life  in  this  country,  and  had 
practically  surrendered  all  hope  or  desire  for  the 
future.  He  had  nothing  but  good  to  say  of  the 
country  and  the  people,  of  the  kindness  and  con¬ 
sideration  which  were  shown  to  him,  a  penniless, 
helpless,  and  useless  stranger.  He  had  a  firm  faith 
in  God,  which  could  not  be  surpassed  by  Dives 
living  in  the  mansion  hard  by.  This  Lazarus  of 
modern  civilization  was  in  as  fair  a  way  to  be  carried 
to  Abraham’s  bosom  as  the  Lazarus  of  the  parable. 


322 


GREAT  ISSUES 


My  heart  warmed  to  him.  I  encouraged  him  to  try 
again,  and  harped  a  little  on  the  energy  and  resource 
of  the  American  character.  For  a  moment  an  old 
light  awoke  in  his  eyes;  but  it  quickly  died  away. 
He  promised  that  he  would  make  another  effort. 
He  accepted  without  effusiveness  a  small  alms;  but 
his  eyes  ranged  over  the  open  space  and  the  distant 
horizon,  and  I  saw  that  simply  to  live  was  enough 
for  him.  While  there  was  air  to  breathe,  and  a  crust 
to  be  found  for  asking,  and  now  and  again  a  night’s 
shelter,  he  would  be  content. 

Life  is  certainly  very  good.  Paley,  in  that  opti¬ 
mistic  eighteenth-century  manner,  which  in  so  many 
ways  gets  nearer  to  the  truth  of  things  than  the  ex¬ 
travagant  faiths  and  unfaiths  of  the  succeeding  cen¬ 
tury,  drew  an  inference  to  the  goodness  of  God  from 
a  shoal  of  small  fish,  which  he  saw  leaping  in  the 
line  of  the  breakers  on  the  shore  and  flashing  in  the 
sun.  They  were,  he  thought,  obviously  enjoying  it, 
and  their  ecstasy  argued  a  creative  cause  which  was 
happy  and  happy-making.  The  closer  observation 
of  the  natural  world  has  greatly  strengthened  this 
argument  since  Paley’ s  days.  Once,  on  our  western 
coast,  —  it  was  a  bright  December  morning,  —  I  was 
startled  by  what  seemed  a  cloud  rising  out  of  the 
sea.  But  the  cloud  was  vital,  and  moved  and 
changed,  not  after  the  slow,  impassive  manner  of 
clouds,  but  with  a  pulsating  energy.  Presently  I  per¬ 
ceived  that  it  was  a  vast  flight  of  dunlins.  They  rose, 
as  if  at  the  command  of  a  choregus;  they  drew 


LIFE 


323 


themselves  out  in  long  lines,  like  the  wings  of  a 
vast  bird  of  heaven;  they  wheeled  round  in  ordered 
squadrons;  they  executed  a  maze  of  measured 
flights,  all  in  perfect  harmony,  thousands  of  them 
moving  as  one.  I  picked  up  from  the  shore  one  of 
their  number  which  had  fallen  out  of  the  bright 
ranks,  dead  and  stark,  the  glazed  eyes  seeing  no 
longer  the  joy  of  his  comrades.  But  there  could  be 
no  doubt  in  my  mind  but  that  the  swift,  noiseless 
evolutions  in  the  sky  were  the  expression  of  a  myriad- 
hearted  delight.  As  I  stood  alone  and  watched, 
with  no  human  companion  to  share  or  to  disturb 
the  doings  above,  I  became  aware  of  the  vast,  wide 
joy  of  the  world.  I  thanked  God  that  living  crea¬ 
tures,  from  animals  up  to  men,  and  beyond,  are  so 
infinite  in  number,  because  every  life  is  a  joy.  Sen¬ 
sation,  notwithstanding  its  possible  or  occasional 
pain,  is  rapturous. 

Again,  I  shared  with  a  friend  a  delicious  sight. 
One  morning  in  early  spring  we  were  at  the  Zoo¬ 
logical  Gardens,  and  came,  we  two  alone,  upon  this 
scene.  The  gnus,  those  awkward  and  ferocious  elf¬ 
like  creatures,  were  out  of  their  stalls  in  the  paddock. 
They  were,  in  sheer  joy  of  the  new  spring,  executing 
a  dance.  Their  great  heavy  heads  and  horns  were 
no  impediment;  they  gyrated  on  their  slender  legs 
with  the  lightness  of  a  Taglioni.  Their  movements 
were  evidently  prearranged  during  the  winter,  for 
they  wheeled  and  returned,  set  to  partners,  locked 
and  unlocked  horns.  It  was  a  spectacle  of  such 


32  4 


GREAT  ISSUES 


surprising  gaiety  that  we  stood  entranced,  and  ever 
since  that  joy  of  the  creation  has  returned  in  memory 
to  confirm  the  belief  that  life,  even  for  life’s  sake,  is 
good. 

It  is  a  pity  that  we  allow  custom  to  stale,  and  the 
occasional  sorrows  and  pains  of  life  to  dim,  this 
obvious  truth.  Why  do  we  not  train  ourselves  to  be 
surprised  and  to  apprehend  the  joy  of  the  world, 
the  endless  interest  and  charm  of  things?  Some 
years  ago  a  man  named  John  Carruth,  at  the  age 
of  thirty,  recovered  his  sight  by  an  operation.  In 
reading  his  first  impressions,  one  felt  heartily  ashamed 
of  not  having  made  more  of  this  wonderful  world, 
of  not  having  praised  God  more  constantly  for  the 
gift  of  life  and  sight.  Gazing  for  the  first  time  on 
the  landscape  of  simple  beauty  which  surrounds  his 
home  at  Crofthead,  Bridge  of  Weir,  he  exclaimed: 
“There  is  bound  to  be  a  Creator  for  all  this!  I 
often  dreamed  that  I  could  see  the  world,  but  I 
never  imagined  it  so  splendid  as  it  is!”  The  rise 
and  fall  of  the  land  struck  him  with  admiration. 
He  had  not  before  understood  why  in  walking  it 
was  sometimes  harder,  sometimes  easier,  to  move; 
now  the  mystery  was  solved.  He  saw  the  shimmer¬ 
ing  water  of  Houston  Head  Loch,  and  another  mys¬ 
tery  was  solved.  He  had  been  in  the  water,  but 
could  not  understand  how  it  gave  way  to  him  and 
why  he  could  not  hold  it. 

“Do  you  hear  that  bird  singing?”  he  asked  his 
companion.  “Yes,  it  is  a  lark.”  “But  do  you  see 


LIFE 


325 

it  rising  in  its  song?”  He  watched  it  become  a 
speck.  He  turned  round,  thinking  of  the  birds  he 
had  heard,  but  never  before  seen,  and  asked,  “Why 
don’t  people  make  more  fuss  about  them?” 

Yes,  life  is  very  good,  to  breathe,  to  enjoy  the  sun. 
All  the  senses  give  an  exquisite  delight.  That 
beautiful  spirit  of  Helen  Keller,  breaking  out  of  the 
prison-house  through  the  three  senses  of  smell  and 
touch  and  taste  alone,  has  given  to  us  all  a  new 
perception  of  the  rapture  in  the  senses  of  which  she, 
dear  soul !  is  deprived  —  the  hearing  and  the  sight. 
For  it  may  be  questioned  whether  there  ever  was  a 
finer  or  a  richer  sensibility,  more  trained,  more 
effective,  more  thrilling  with  joy,  than  this  which 
never  saw  a  sight  or  heard  a  sound.  Her  literary 
style  is  not  only  clear  but  coloured,  not  only  strong 
but  musical.  She  has  told  us  how  in  a  country 
walk  all  the  landscape  comes  to  her  in  the  scents, 
and  how  she  can  feel  by  a  vibration  the  running  of  a 
brook,  or  even,  as  she  leans  her  head  to  the  trunk  of 
a  tree,  the  whisper  of  the  leaves. 

No  wonder  all  the  resources  of  plastic  art  and  of 
music  fail  to  exhaust  the  delight  that  comes  through 
the  eye  and  the  ear ! 

But  Helen  Keller’s  economic  use  of  her  frugal 
senses  is  the  best  possible  comment  on  the  resources 
of  the  soul.  The  soul  is  the  life.  In  Greek  one 
word  is  used  for  both.  The  soul  communicates  with 
the  material  world  and  with  other  souls,  so  far  as 
they  are  embodied  in  a  material  tabernacle  through 


326 


GREAT  ISSUES 


the  senses.  But  the  life  of  man,  at  any  rate  (we 
can  but  faintly  surmise  the  life  of  other  creatures), 
is  intrinsically  the  soul.  It  is  not  the  sensations, 
nor  the  succession,  nor  the  sum  total,  of  sensations. 
It  is  the  entity  which  receives  sensations,  and  lives 
apart  from  them,  the  identity  in  the  ceaseless  flux 
of  perceptions,  the  unity  of  concepts,  the  thread  of 
personality.  Life  is  the  soul ;  it  is  the  person.  And 
because  the  soul  is  distinct  from  the  material  world, 
and  from  the  lower  life-forms,  it  reports  differently 
of  life.  Personality  admits  of  good  and  evil,  a  good 
exceeding  good,  an  evil  exceeding  evil.  While, 
therefore,  speaking  of  life  objectively,  we  can  say 
and  prove  that  it  is  very  good,  speaking  of  life  sub¬ 
jectively,  we  are  bound  to  admit  that  the  soul  is  good 
or  evil.  When  we  wake  to  human  life  there  is  an 
appalling  discovery  —  that  it  can  be  good  or  evil, 
unutterably  good,  unutterably  evil. 

The  life  of  earth  is  good,  only  good.  Its  verdure 
of  springing  grass,  its  forests  of  leafy  trees;  its 
hidden  treasures  of  minerals  and  gems,  its  rocks 
and  stones  and  soil;  its  lucent  air  and  gathering 
gloom,  its  pageantry  of  sunrise  and  noon  and  sun¬ 
set,  its  arch  of  star-filled  heavens  above,  and  the 
star-filled  heavens  at  the  Antipodes,  and  around; 
its  tiny  amoeba,  the  one  undifferentiated  cell  alive, 
its  range  upon  range  of  living  things  up  to  the 
mighty  cachalot,  which  in  the  moonlight  ocean 
struggles  with  and  devours  the  lithe  and  clinging 
octopus;  its  swarming  fishes  in  the  river,  the 


LIFE 


327 


lake,  and  the  sea;  its  birds  migrating,  or  settling 
even  in  the  frozen  circle  of  the  Antarctic  pole;  its 
animals  of  all  kinds  and  sizes,  burrowing  in,  or 
ranging  over,  its  surface  —  this  organic,  bedded  in 
the  inorganic,  springing  out  of  it,  passing  into  it,  no 
one  can  tell  how,  is  wholly  good.  It  is  true,  life 
sustains  life,  species  dies  for  species;  the  unit  exists 
only  for  the  whole,  as  a  cell  in  a  body,  for  the  body. 
It  is  open,  therefore,  to  a  morbid  and  perverse 
human  mind  to  complain  that  death  pervades  the 
life  of  earth,  and  that  Nature  is  red  in  tooth  and 
claw.  But  that  is  a  manifest  misreading,  a  jaundiced 
view  which  is  corrected  by  the  scientific  purging  of 
the  eyes.  It  is  the  law  of  life  that  the  grass  feeds 
the  graminivorous  animals,  and  the  graminivorous 
the  carnivores.  But  the  death  of  the  animals  is  no 
more  detraction  from  the  goodness  of  life  than  the 
munching  of  the  grass. 

But  the  life  which  is  soul  may  be  good  or  bad.  If 
it  is  good  it  continues  the  goodness  of  the  lower 
forms,  and  leads  to  a  transcendental  goodness  which 
connects  itself  with  higher  forms  in  the  spiritual 
world;  if  it  is  bad  it  misreads  the  goodness  of  the 
lower  forms,  and  connects  itself  with  bad  forms  in 
the  spiritual  world,  shaping  for  itself  a  mode  of 
being  which  might  conceivably  be  evil,  whole  and 
unredeemed.  Edward  Fitzgerald,  commandeering, 
rather  than  translating,  the  “Rubaiyat”  of  Omar 
Khayyam,  gives  a  faultless  expression  to  the  phe¬ 


nomenon  : 


328 


GREAT  ISSUES 


“I  sent  my  soul  through  the  Invisible, 

Some  letter  of  that  after  life  to  spell, 

And  by  and  by  my  soul  returned  to  me 
And  answered :  I  myself  am  heaven  and  hell  — 

Heaven  but  the  vision  of  fulfilled  desire, 

And  hell  the  shadow  of  a  soul  on  fire, 

Cast  on  the  darkness  into  which  ourselves 
So  late  emerged  from  shall  so  soon  expire.” 

The  solemnity  of  the  human  soul  is  this,  that  it  can¬ 
not  by  any  possibility  abide  with  the  mere  good  life 
of  the  earth,  rolled  round  with  stocks  and  stones 
and  trees,  or  sharing  the  life  of  the  other  animals. 
It  is  perfectly  useless  for  Whitman  to  admire  and  to 
prefer  that  placid  life: 

“I  think  I  could  turn  and  live  with  animals,  they  are  so 
placid  and  self-contained, 

I  stand  and  look  at  them  long  and  long. 

They  do  not  sweat  and  whine  about  their  condition, 

They  do  not  lie  awake  in  the  dark  and  weep  for  their  sins, 
They  do  not  make  me  sick  discussing  their  duty  to  God, 
Not  one  is  dissatisfied,  not  one  is  demented  with  the  mania 
of  owning  things, 

Not  one  kneels  to  another,  nor  to  his  kind  that  lived  thou¬ 
sands  of  years  ago, 

Not  one  is  respectable  or  unhappy  over  the  whole  earth.”  1 

A 

He  might  have  added,  Not  one  wrote  a  “Song  of 
Myself,”  or  could  appreciate  a  line  of  “Leaves  of 
Grass.” 

Life,  when  we  are  speaking  of  human  life,  cannot 

1  “Song  of  Myself.” 


LIFE 


329 

be  the  life  of  the  animals,  any  more  than  it  can  be 
the  life  of  the  mosses  on  the  one  hand  or  of  angels 
on  the  other.  It  is  a  soul  —  that  is  to  say,  it  shapes 
for  itself  a  heaven  or  a  hell,  as  Fitzgerald  puts  it, 
though  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  it  escapes  by 
death  the  heaven  or  hell  of  its  making.  While 
proof  is  not  available,  human  life  cannot  escape  the 
doubt,  the  surmise,  of  the 

“.  .  .  something  after  death, 

The  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveller  returns.” 

Indeed,  whenever  we  come  to  work  seriously  at 
human  life,  we  find  its  continued  existence  after 
death  becoming  first  possible,  then  probable,  then 
certain.  We  have  no  choice.  We  may  covet  life 
after  death,  or  dread  it.  We  may,  with  the  Hindoo 
or  the  Buddhist,  direct  all  our  living  energy  to  es¬ 
caping  it  and  to  reaching  the  bliss  of  ceasing  to  be; 
or  we  may,  with  the  Christian,  strain  every  nerve  to 
secure  eternal  life;  we  may  have  qualms  of  pain, 
as  Huxley  had,  in  thinking  that  at  the  end  of  the 
century  he  would  exist  no  more  than  he  did  at  the 
beginning ;  1  or  we  may,  with  the  despairing  suicide, 
passionately  desire  to  be  “  anywhere,  anywhere  out 
of  the  world.”  But  a  dispassionate  inquiry  leads  to 
the  irresistible  conviction  that  we  shall  live  and  not 
die.  We  are  destined  for  our  eternity,  whether  we 
make  that  future  the  soul  on  fire  from  which  we 

1  “Life  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Henry  Huxley,”  ii.  p.  62. 


33° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


recoil  or  learn  to  say  with  Obermann,  “  Eternite,  de- 
viens  mon  asyle .” 

The  dogmas,  as  Fitzgerald  perceived,  are  in  this 
case  not  the  cause  but  the  effect  of  the  belief. 
Heaven  and  hell  are  not  the  creation  of  priests,  who 
at  the  best  have  only  garnished  them,  and  at  the 
worst  have  rendered  them  incredible.  They  emerge 
spontaneously  in  consciousness  as  the  result  of 
serious  reflection  on  life,  nay,  as  the  result  merely  of 
living.  I  have  heard  of  men  vehemently  declaring 
that  they  will  die  like  the  brutes,  that  they  will 
cease  to  be,  that  there  is  no  heaven  or  hell.  But  I 
have  seen  no  evidence  that  any  one  seriously  believes 
this.  The  belief  in  immortality  is  not  a  convention 
devised  for  the  sake  of  influencing,  or  giving  worth 
to,  this  present  life  (though  it  must  be  owned  that  it 
is  difficult  to  give  worth  to  life,  or  to  maintain  it  as 
an  upward  progress,  if  personal  life  perishes  in 
death),  but  it  is  an  inevitable  product  of  human  life 
itself.  Herbert  Spencer  quaintly  explained  it  from 
dreams  and  shadows :  primitive  man  saw  his  shadow 
and  mistook  it  for  his  soul;  he  dreamed  of  a  dead 
friend,  and  thought  the  vision  a  proof  of  his  exist¬ 
ence.  This  is  far  too  naive.  When  in  his  later  life 
Spencer  found  out  the  defects  of  his  own  thought 
and  deplored  the  loss  of  those  spiritual  experiences 
which  he  had  failed  to  cultivate,  he  was  awaking  from 
the  hypnotic  trance  into  which  his  own  system  of 
thought  had  thrown  him.  With  the  utmost  labour, 
and  through  a  dozen  weighty  volumes,  he  had  per- 


LIFE 


33 1 


suaded  himself  that  his  life  was  limited  by  the  grave. 
But  the  delusion  broke  from  him  in  the  awaking. 
It  is  easier  to  persuade  yourself  that  you  are  not 
existing  now  than  that  you  will  not  exist  after  death. 
It  is  just  as  necessary,  or  as  unnecessary,  to  offer 
proofs  that  we  are  now  living  as  to  offer  proofs  that 
we  shall  live.  The  one  implies  the  other.  Life,  in 
the  sense  of  soul,  is  persistent.  It  has  come  to  be, 
not  to  perish.  Explain  it  as  you  will,  or  strive  to 
explain  it  away  by  any  argument  at  your  disposal, 
you  cannot  evade  the  conviction;  it  floats  up  to  the 
surface  of  the  mind  in  quiet  hours,  or  in  rare  experi¬ 
ences:  to  say  that  “I  am”  is  the  same  thing  as  to 
say  “I  shall  be.”  To  say  “I  die”  is  only  to  assert 
an  experience  of  the  Ego,  a  baffling  experience,  a 
plunge  into  the  unknown ;  but  of  the  words  the  “  I  ”  is 
dominant  and  persistent,  the  “die”  is  but  transitory. 
“I,”  fully  realized,  is  a  term  that  precludes  death. 

The  pressing  problem  is,  not  to  show  that  life 
persists  —  for  Nature  sees  to  that  argument  —  but 
how  to  use  life,  and  to  give  value  to  it.  Clearly  a 
life  that  is  already  meaningless  and  purposeless  can¬ 
not  be  improved  by  being  made  everlasting.  A  life 
that  has  become  insipid,  or  a  burden,  here  within 
the  narrow  limits  of  time,  promises  nothing  but 
torture  if  it  is  continued  into  eternity.  One  may 
easily  snatch  at  a  Hindoo  philosophy,  and  begin  to 
covet  Nirvana,  the  cessation  of  personal  conscious¬ 
ness,  as  the  only  desirable  heaven,  unless  conscious¬ 
ness  as  we  know  it  has  acquired  an  intrinsic  value, 


332 


GREAT  ISSUES 


a  flavour,  a  motive,  an  activity,  which,  prolonged  to 
infinity,  would  be  increasingly  sweet  and  satisfying. 
Life  must  have  an  interpretation,  a  purpose,  a  posi¬ 
tive  quality,  or  the  prospect  of  continuance  may 
become  no  consolation,  but  a  haunting  fear. 

How  clearly  in  the  sensuous  life  of  the  early 
Greeks  this  fact  was  realized  is  shown  by  the  myth 
of  Tithonus.  The  goddess  had  heedlessly  endowed 
him  with  immortality.  But  old  age  and  world¬ 
weariness  came  on.  Her  bright  beauty  and  eternal 
youth  ceased  to  charm  him.  The  light  of  the  sun 
oppressed  him;  the  joy  of  the  earth  palled.  It  was 
death,  not  life,  for  which  he  panted ;  death,  not  life, 
of  which  his  nerves  were  scant.  The  greatest  terror 
that  can  fall  upon  the  soul  is  not  death,  but  a  life 
which  has  become  an  intolerable  ennui ,  which  yet 
it  is  impossible  to  extinguish.  Heaven  may  be  as 
insufferable  as  hell  for  one  who  has  not  found  the 
secret  which  makes  life  worth  while,  for  one  to  whom 
the  only  delights  of  eternity  are  not  attractive  but 
tedious.  There  is  no  profanity,  but  a  deep  serious¬ 
ness,  in  R.  K.  Stephen’s  apparently  flippant  epigram : 

“Though  hell  at  the  first 
Might  seem  to  be  worst, 

Yet  time  the  annoyance  might  soften: 

But  if  you  are  bored 
With  praising  the  Lord, 

You’ll  be  more  so  by  praising  Him  often.” 

While  our  thoughts  are  directed  to  external 
sources  of  joy  or  sorrow  we  can  hardly  apprehend 


LIFE 


333 


the  deep  and  tragical  significance  of  eschatology. 
But  when  we  examine  the  consciousness  itself,  and 
note  how  its  joys  and  sorrows  alike  are  the  product 
of  its  own  condition,  the  matter  assumes  an  over¬ 
whelming  significance.  For  facing  eternity,  that 
eternity  which  it  does  not  seem  within  our  power  to 
evade,  it  is  evidently  necessary  to  have  a  conscious¬ 
ness  which,  at  home  with  eternal  things,  has  learned 
to  live  a  life  tolerant  of  an  eternal  continuance  and 
growth.  A  life  which  has  become  entirely  dependent 
on  the  things  that  are  passing  away  might  be  hardly 
less  desolate  and  forlorn  in  an  eternal  world  than 
one  which  has  heedlessly  misused  the  things  of  the 
senses.  A  Dives  in  hell  might  suffer  as  much  as  a 
debauchee  or  a  criminal.  For  to  the  thoroughly 
vicious  character  the  indulgence  has  ceased  to  be 
pleasing,  and  hell  only  continues  the  habit  of 
his  life;  but  for  Dives  hell  means  the  loss  of 
the  comforts  and  luxuries  which  were  his  only 
pleasures. 

A  man  living  the  luxurious  and  self-indulgent  life 
of  the  clubs  had  one  night  a  dream,  which  altogether 
changed  his  course  of  life.  He  was  in  hell,  and  he 
knew  it.  But  the  strange  thing  was  that  he  was  in 
the  smoking-room  of  his  club,  and  everything  ap¬ 
peared  just  as  usual.  He  rang  the  bell,  which 
brought  in  the  waiter,  alert  and  respectful.  He 
asked  for  the  evening  papers.  “Yes,  sir,”  was  the 
reply,  and  they  were  immediately  brought.  He 
glanced  through  them,  but  could  find  no  interest  in 


334 


GREAT  ISSUES 


them.  He  rang  again.  The  same  deferential  waiter 
was  at  the  door.  He  ordered  a  brandy  and  soda. 
“Yes,  sir,”  and  it  was  brought  at  once.  “Waiter,” 
he  asked,  “where  am  I?”  “In  hell,  sir,”  was  the 
reply.  “Is  this  hell?”  he  cried;  “is  it  just  like 
this?  Will  it  continue  so?”  “Yes,  it  is  just  this, 
and  will  continue  so!”  “For  ever?”  “Yes,  for 
ever!”  Then  the  horror  of  it  broke  upon  him. 
Life  had  consisted  in  killing  time  with  the  aimless 
indulgences  of  the  club.  He  had  always  congratu¬ 
lated  himself  on  getting  through  another  day,  or 
week,  or  winter.  Though  he  had  always  dreaded 
death,  each  lapse  of  the  years  of  life  had  been  a 
relief.  But  now  there  was  no  time  to  kill.  He 
might  kill  years,  centuries,  millennia,  but  he  would 
be  just  where  he  was  —  the  selfish  meals,  the  cigars, 
the  drinks,  the  sporting  papers.  He  realized  that 
he  was  in  hell. 

The  supreme  problem,  then,  is  to  obtain  an  inter¬ 
pretation,  a  plan,  a  mode  of  life  which,  having  in 
itself  intrinsic  value,  continued  into  eternity,  would 
retain  and  increase  its  value.  Not  life  is  what  we 
want,  but  life  that  is  life  indeed.  “  Omnia  fui ,  et 
nihil  expedit ,”  said  the  Emperor  Severus  —  “I  have 
been  everything  and  nothing  is  of  any  use.”  The 
same  burden  is  in  Ecclesiastes,  though  with  a  con¬ 
clusion  that  offers  a  clue.  It  is  a  commonplace  of 
thought  —  and  it  is  this  which  makes  Ecclesiastes 
the  most  delicately  charming  book  in  the  Bible  to  a 
mind  like  Renan’s  —  that  all  the  experiences  of 


LIFE 


335 


honour,  indulgence,  wealth,  and  power,  which  are 
possible  for  a  human  being,  may  leave  the  soul  as 
hungry  and  dissatisfied  as  ever.  Though  mistaken 
mortals  start  out  on  the  old  quest,  defiant  of  the 
world’s  experience,  it  remains  true  that  everything 
which  the  world  offers  is  in  the  long  run  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit. 

There  are  two  or  three  conclusions  which  may  be 
considered  settled,  and  it  would  save  a  world  of 
disappointment  and  trouble  if  only  youth  could 
accept  them  as  proved  from  the  beginning.  In  the 
hope  that  one  or  another  of  my  readers  may  be  led 
to  grapple  with  the  subject  in  time,  I  will  state  three 
of  these  conclusions:  In  the  first  place,  it  is  quite 
impossible  that  a  human  life  should  verify  itself  or 
become  valid  in  isolation.  Only  as  part  of  a  social 
organism  can  the  individual  really  live.  In  Aris¬ 
totle’s  vigorous  phrase,  one  who  would  separate 
himself  and  be  apart  is  f)  0eo?  rj  Orjpcov,  either  a 
god  or  a  wild  beast.  But  Aristotle  was  not  aware 
of  the  facts,  whether  of  theology  or  of  natural  his¬ 
tory,  which  make  his  comparison  at  either  end  un¬ 
suitable.  For  God,  as  we  have  learnt  to  know  Him, 
is  not  isolated.  In  His  intrinsic  and  Eternal  Being 
He  is  Love.  Within  Himself  is  the  movement 
which  establishes  relations,  and  goes  out  to  make 
objects  of  love.  So  far  from  being  isolated,  God 
goes  out  like  a  Father  to  His  children,  and  seeks  to 
bring  them  into  His  family,  reconciled  and  happy. 
The  solitary  human  life,  hoping  to  find  a  self- 


336 


GREAT  ISSUES 


sufficiency  in  isolation  from  its  fellows,  is  not  God¬ 
like,  as  we  understand  God.  Nor  is  it  fair  to  com¬ 
pare  such  a  life  with  the  wild  animal,  for  all  through 
the  life  of  animals  runs  the  principle  of  co-operation 
and  mutual  aid.  The  wild  beast  of  the  forest  has 
its  domestic  life,  its  love  for  mate  and  offspring,  its 
heroic  struggle  for  the  life  of  others.  A  man  that 
separateth  himself,  and  expects  to  make  his  life 
alone,  can  find  no  real  justification  in  heaven  or  in 
earth.  Every  life  consists  and  must  consist  of  rela¬ 
tions.  A  human  life  is  necessarily  a  network  of 
delicately  woven  and  solicitously  maintained  rela¬ 
tions.  So  far  as  it  is  selfish  it  is  dead  while  it  lives. 
It  lives  really  in  the  extension  of  these  finely  spun  rela¬ 
tions  with  other  lives,  with  other  beings,  with  God. 
The  first  step  in  life  is  to  find  the  true  relations  in 
the  family,  the  reverence  to  parents,  the  considera¬ 
tion  for  brothers  and  sisters,  the  kindness  to  de¬ 
pendents,  which  make  the  home  life.  It  must  be 
owned  that  one  who  has  missed  these  preliminary 
lessons  of  life  is  at  a  great  disadvantage,  and  a  wise 
state  will  do  its  best  to  provide  homes  for  orphans, 
and  those  who,  by  the  vices  of  parents,  are  robbed 
of  that  initial  training.  The  second  step  in  life  is  to 
realize  the  rights  and  claims  of  others  in  the  world. 
This  is  the  chief  lesson  that  school  has  to  teach,  and 
is  a  reason  for  preferring  a  school  training  to  a  too 
lengthy  course  of  education  at  home.  The  third  step 
in  life  is  to  extend  the  relations  with  friends  and 
acquaintances  to  the  whole  country.  Patriotism  is  a 


LIFE 


337 


necessary  transition  from  the  life  of  the  family  to 
the  family  of  mankind.  We  cannot  attain  cosmo¬ 
politanism  at  a  bound;  our  love  of  mankind  is  in¬ 
sipid  and  bloodless,  if  it  does  not  pass  through  the 
love  of  the  country  to  which  we  belong.  But  the 
fourth  step  in  life  is  to  gain  the  sense  of  humanity, 
to  believe  in  its  solidarity,  and  to  hold  oneself  a 
debtor  to  the  whole  race.  That  life  has  become 
truly  good  and  worthy  of  immortality,  which  throbs 
with  the  life  of  the  whole.  It  could  be  wished  that 
over  every  human  grave  might  be  written  the  epi¬ 
taph  which  marks  John  Howard’s  resting-place  in 
Russia:  “ Reader,  whosoever  thou  art,  know  that 
thou  standest  by  the  grave  of  a  friend.” 

Life  is  not  achieved  or  realized  until  all  human 
beings  are  recognized  and  potentially  loved;  until 
the  life’s  work,  however  simple  and  humble,  is  done 
as  a  contribution  to  the  life  of  the  whole,  a  personal 
salutation  from  the  individual  to  humanity.  The 
fifth  and  final  step  in  life,  coming  often,  at  least 
partially,  nearer  the  beginning,  is  the  recognition  of 
the  greater  spiritual  company  to  which  we  belong, 
the  spiritual  presences  which  occupy  the  world,  and 
give  meaning  to  the  universe.  Only  then  do  we  live 
in  the  fuller  sense  when  we  are  come  unto  Mount 
Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God,  the  heavenly 
Jerusalem,  and  to  innumerable  hosts  of  angels,  to 
the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  firstborn 
who  are  enrolled  in  heaven,  and  to  God  the  judge 
of  all  and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect. 


33s 


GREAT  ISSUES 


The  family  in  which  we  were  born  is  much  larger 
than  we  knew. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  possible  to  give  a 
genuine  value  to  life  without  God.  No  one  hitherto 
has  succeeded  in  doing  it,  though  the  pathos  of  human 
folly  is  that  in  each  generation  men  renew  the  experi¬ 
ment.  But  it  is  only  in  relation  with  the  supreme, 
ordering  and  unifying  life  —  which  is  God  —  that 
the  individual  life  acquires  worth.  There  are  times 
when  the  life  of  humanity  seems  enough,  and  social¬ 
ism  offers  a  substitute  for  religion.  But  again  there 
are  times  when  even  humanity,  conceived  as  a 
whole,  and  brought  by  supposition  to  its  ultimate 
perfection  of  hannony,  co-operation,  and  love,  re¬ 
mains  a  caput  mortuum ,  lacking  explanation  or  ade¬ 
quate  reason  for  existence.  We  can  only  keep  hu¬ 
manity  as  an  object  of  desire  and  love,  when  we 
succeed  in  regarding  it  as  the  life  of  God  seeking 
self-expression.  Human  has  its  value  as  antithetical 
to  divine.  And  if  humanity  as  a  whole  is  only  of 
worth  as  the  expression  of  the  life  of  God,  our  indi¬ 
vidual  lives  acquire  their  meaning  and  value  only  by 
realizing  the  life  of  God  in  them.  It  may,  and 
must,  be  evident  that  the  life  of  God  is  at  work  in 
all  things,  and  even  the  lowest  forms  of  life  betray 
the  presence  of  that  informing  life  which  gives  unity 
and  harmony  to  all.  But  the  life  of  God  in  hu¬ 
manity  is  God  emerging  to  a  kind  of  limited  con¬ 
sciousness  in  the  individual.  It  is  a  hint,  a  sugges¬ 
tion,  a  promise,  a  potency,  not  an  immediate  fulfil- 


LIFE 


339 


ment.  Consciousness  is  as  it  were  a  daring  experi¬ 
ment.  It  is  a  particle  of  the  Divine  life,  flung  off, 
to  try  whether  it  will  develop  in  harmony  and  love 
with  the  whole.  It  is  breathed  out  from  God  in 
order  to  return  voluntarily  to  God.  But  if  this  is 
the  origin  of  the  mystery  of  human  life,  it  is  evident 
that  no  human  life  can  justify  itself,  or  discover  its 
own  validity,  until  it  realizes  its  origin  and  purpose, 
nor  can  final  justification  be  reached  until  the  pur¬ 
pose  is  accomplished,  though  life  becomes  of  value 
directly  the  purpose  is  grasped  sufficiently  to  make 
the  result  an  object  of  desire  and  of  quest. 

Life  without  God  must  always  be  an  abortion, 
an  ache,  an  unfulfilled  desire.  The  attempt  to 
organize  human  life  without  God,  resulting  in  the 
complicated  atheisms  of  the  world,  the  convention¬ 
alities  and  insincerities,  the  pitiless  competition,  the 
hungry  generations  treading  each  other  down,  the 
nations  engaged  in  war  or  in  ruinous  preparation  for 
war,  in  commercial  rivalries  instead  of  hearty  and 
brotherly  co-operation,  is  the  clearest  proof  that  only 
with  God  and  in  right  relation  to  Him  can  human 
life  be  valid,  successful,  or  happy. 

Sit  down  in  a  calm  moment  and  ask  yourself: 
Why  am  I  here?  Why  should  I  strive  for  good¬ 
ness,  for  love,  for  life?  What  account  can  I  give 
to  myself  for  my  existence,  or  what  goal  can  I  set 
before  my  eyes  for  my  endeavour?  Unless  you  may 
use  the  term  God  for  explanation  you  will  find  that 
you  can  give  no  satisfying  answer,  no  answer  which 


340 


GREAT  ISSUES 


does  not  leave  your  life  a  prey  to  sickening  disillu¬ 
sion.  The  human  soul,  when  it  comes  to  reflect, 
has  no  choice.  It  is  shut  up  to  God.  There  is 
God  or  —  nothing.  Human  life  admits  of  no 
rational  interpretation,  except  that  its  aim  is  “to 
glorify  God  and  to  enjoy  Him  for  ever.” 

It  is  observed  in  every  great  picture  that  there  is 
some  object,  some  touch  of  colour,  which  gives  unity 
to  the  whole.  If  that  small  spot  is  covered  or  re¬ 
moved,  the  picture,  though  it  does  not  disappear, 
becomes  flat  and  insipid.  The  genius  of  a  painter 
might  sometimes  introduce  into  a  failure  from  the 
brush  of  another  that  centralizing  and  vitalizing 
point  which  would  redeem  the  whole. 

In  the  picture  of  human  life  there  must  be  such  a 
point,  round  which  or  in  reference  to  which  the 
other  lines,  or  colours,  are  introduced.  If  that 
point  is  omitted  the  whole  composition  is  flat  and 
tedious.  No  dashes  of  brilliance,  no  touches  of 
loveliness  here  and  there  can  save  it  as  a  whole. 

That  point  in  the  picture  of  each  man’s  life, 
central,  indispensable,  without  which  the  life  ceases 
to  be  a  life  and  becomes  a  mere  succession  of  vanish¬ 
ing  sensations,  “mere  glimmerings  and  decays,”  is 
God. 

But,  in  the  third  place,  man  is  not  able  to  give 
any  but  a  poor,  degrading,  and  threadbare  meaning 
to  life  unless  he  has  “Forever.”  The  limits  and 
the  uncertainty  of  human  life  reduce  its  value,  some¬ 
times  to  the  vanishing  point,  unless  we  are  permitted 


LIFE 


341 


to  regard  it  only  as  a  beginning,  which  is  to  find  its 
fulfilment  and  ultimate  justification  in  the  life  be¬ 
yond.  When  Pliny  nobly  said:  “Death  is  the  end, 
not  of  life,  but  of  our  mortality,”  he  struck  the  note 
which  is  absolutely  essential  to  make  life  a  reality,  a 
significant  reality.  In  youth  and  health  there  are 
full-blooded  seasons  of  buoyant  expectation  and 
joyful  achievement,  which  easily  mislead  us.  For 
most  men  there  have  been  days  and  weeks,  if  not 
months  and  years,  in  which  to  breathe,  to  eat,  to 
move,  to  love,  to  labour,  furnished  all  that  seemed  to 
be  necessary.  For  a  limited  time  we  can  live  with 
a  limited  horizon.  And  it  is  certainly  true  that, 
with  a  definite  object  in  view,  a  work  to  achieve, 
something  to  make  or  to  finish,  the  mind  may  be  so 
absorbed  and  concentrated  that  it  is  not  conscious 
of  any  desire  beyond.  While  Gibbon  was  engaged 
on  his  masterpiece,  through  those  years  of  patient 
toil  and  brilliant  performance,  he  desired  no  immor¬ 
tality,  unless  it  were  the  immortality  of  his  work. 
And  a  great  part  of  mankind  are  at  any  given  mo¬ 
ment  living  under  this  restriction  of  view,  the  sails 
trimmed  and  taut  before  the  steady  gale  of  life. 
But  this  familiar  fact  does  not  alter  the  truth,  that 
on  the  one  hand  these  seasons  are  for  all  men  ex¬ 
ceptional,  and  on  the  other  hand,  even  in  the  moment 
of  deepest  absorption,  an  hour’s  reflection  would 
show  that  the  effort  and  strain  lacked  a  rational 
defence  unless  a  draft  might  be  drawn  on  the  future. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  was  so  absorbed  in  writing  his 


342 


GREAT  ISSUES 


novels,  in  order  to  pay  off  the  huge  obligations  of 
Constable,  that  he  lost  sight  of  everything,  except 
the  money  which  the  amazing  stories  brought  in. 
But  for  that  very  reason  the  sight  of  that  heroic 
toiler  would  become  an  anomaly  and  a  pain,  unless 
we  might  assume  that  not  only  were  the  works  im¬ 
mortal,  but  the  noble  heart  which  conceived  and 
executed  them  would  continue  in  the  universe  of 
God,  one  of  the  noblest  pieces  of  God’s  handiwork. 

Scott’s  Melrose  is  a  good  place  in  which  to  work 
out  this  theme.  In  the  burying-ground  which  sur¬ 
rounds  the  Abbey  is  an  old  gravestone,  bearing  a 
Memento  mori  and  these  satiric  lines: 

“Earth  goeth  on  the  earth,  glistering  as  gold, 

The  earth  goes  to  the  earth,  sooner  than  it  wold, 

The  earth  builds  on  the  earth  castles  and  towers, 

The  earth  says  to  the  earth,  ‘All  shall  be  ours.’” 

It  is  a  cryptic  saying.  Man  is  the  earth  walking  on 
the  earth.  But  when  the  earth  says  to  him,  All  shall 
be  ours,  does  it  mean  that  earth  claims  for  her  off¬ 
spring  the  future,  the  eternal?  Or  does  it  only 
express  ungrammatically  the  idea  that  all,  man  in¬ 
cluded,  shall  return  to  dust? 

But  the  question,  however  raised,  is  here  surely 
answered.  For  under  the  south  wall  of  the  ruin  is 
the  grave  of  Sir  David  Brewster.  There  is  a  tragedy 
in  that  tomb.  He  left  Tweedside  in  fear  of  the 
deep,  swift  rushing  river,  and  yet  afterwards  his  own 
son,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  was  drowned  in  it.  There 
by  the  river  lie  his  ashes,  but  on  the  tomb  are  the 


LIFE 


343 


words :  “  The  Lord  is  my  light.”  The  great  searcher 
into  the  laws  of  light  has  found  the  Light.  The 
earth  goes  to  the  earth,  no  doubt,  but  Sir  David 
Brewster  goes  to  the  Light,  that  Lord  in  whose  light 
we  see  light. 

Those  ruins  thrill  with  spiritual  and  eternal  mean¬ 
ing.  From  the  keystone  of  an  arch  in  a  ruined 
passage  looks  down  an  exquisite  carving  of  the  face 
of  Jesus.  As  one  wanders  and  meditates  among  the 
rich  memorials  of  the  past,  with  the  great  names 
reverberating  through  the  mind,  the  achievements  of 
science  and  art,  sure  to  remain  while  man  remains 
on  the  earth,  coming  into  review,  the  clear  river 
lapsing  by,  the  Eildon  hills  looking  down,  and  the 
story  of  Border  war  and  minstrelsy  endowing  the 
enchanted  scene  with  spiritual  glory,  these  monu¬ 
ments  of  mortality  and  decay  are  drenched  with  the 
light  of  immortality,  and  one  is  conscious  that  the 
great  dead,  known  or  unknown,  have  passed  through 
these  scenes  and  left  the  marks  of  their  passage, 
because  they  are  gone  on  to  larger  activities  and  to 
more  enduring  fame. 

The  instinct  of  the  future  life  is  too  strong  in  great 
souls  for  us  to  know  how  they  would  have  acted  if 
it  had  not  been  there.  The  explanation  of  their 
greatness  is  so  rooted  in  their  everlastingness  that  we 
should  hesitate  to  call  them  great  if  now  they  were 
dead  or  could  die. 

Even  for  ordinary  men,  with  no  works  of  genius 
to  accomplish,  but  only  the  work  of  life  to  do,  it  would 


344 


GREAT  ISSUES 


hardly  be  possible,  when  the  few  buoyant  days  of 
youth  are  over,  to  live  worthily,  if  a  doubt  assailed 
them  that  life  meant  only  the  distance  from  birth  to 
death.  Within  those  cramping  limits  it  is  not  pos¬ 
sible  to  write  anything  great,  or  on  a  fine  scale,  were 
it  only  for  this,  that  the  ulterior  limit  is  absolutely 
uncertain.  How  can  one  find  heart  to  attempt 
nobly  under  the  shadow  of  an  impending  sword? 
“  Secure  me  my  seventy  years,”  a  man  might  say  at 
twenty,  “and  I  will  plan  my  life  for  a  seventy  years’ 
achievement.”  But  when  the  inexorable  oracle 
answers,  “I  can  secure  you  only  to-day,”  the  hand 
falters,  the  wings  of  desire  are  furled,  and  the  heart 
finds  its  wisdom  in  the  conclusion,  “Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die.” 

We  need  the  higher  Oracle,  which  says  credibly 
and  convincingly :  “You  have  for  ever.  The  earthly 
life,  it  is  true,  is  brief  and  uncertain,  but  conceive  and 
work  in  the  assurance  of  life  continuing.  You  have 
plenty  of  time  if  your  conception  is  worthy.  Plan 
your  life  as  part  of  eternity.  Face  death,  but  be 
not  disconcerted  by  it,  for  it  is  only  an  incident,  and 
not  a  disabling  one.” 

Evidently  some  short  lives  are  merely  the  exhibi¬ 
tion  of  an  activity  destined  for  appreciation  and 
achievement  elsewhere: 

“Ostendent  terris  hunc  tantum  fata,  neque  ultra 
Esse  sinent.” 

But  all  lives,  even  the  longest,  are  of  the  same 
nature,  brief  manifestations  in  time  of  a  persistent 


LIFE 


345 


purpose  and  energy.  The  short  earthly  span  has  its 
purpose,  for  the  world’s  life  and  for  the  soul’s. 
When  it  is  accomplished,  the  soul,  like  the  work  of 
the  potter,  is  turned  forth  sufficiently  impressed. 

“I  count  life  just  a  stuff 

To  try  the  soul’s  strength  on,  and  educe  the  man.” 

With  this  wider  range,  not  forgetting  but  ignoring 
death,  we  can  approach  our  task  in  life  undisturbed, 
unalarmed.  We  do  not  limit  our  undertakings  to 
the  permission  of  a  future  straitly  defined  though  to 
us  unknown.  We  draw  our  arc  of  the  circle,  be  it 
long  or  short,  by  the  foot  of  a  compass  planted  in 
eternity.  This  gives  the  possibility  of  a  high  endeav¬ 
our,  of  a  noble  achievement  here,  and  the  certainty 
of  achievement,  even  the  completest,  elsewhere. 

Herbert  Coleridge,  the  grandson  of  the  poet, 
was  a  great  scholar  at  Oxford.  He  died  at  thirty. 
But  when,  eighteen  months  before  the  end,  he  was 
told  that  recovery  was  hopeless,  his  only  reply  was: 
“Then  I  must  begin  Sanscrit  to-morrow.”  Yes,  we 
must  have  large  room  and  spiritual  certainty  to  at¬ 
tempt  or  to  achieve  anything  worthy.  We  must  not 
waste  time  in  fuming  at  its  narrow  limits,  or  refuse 
to  use  it  because  it  is  gone  as  soon  as  we  begin. 
We  want  a  reason  for  using  each  day  with  a  reverent 
serenity,  with  a  deliberate  purpose,  for  using  all  the 
days  without  haste,  without  rest.  This  reason  can 
only  be  found  in  a  deep,  unalterable  conviction  of 
the  eternal  value  of  time,  and  of  the  timeless  life  of 
the  soul. 


346 


GREAT  ISSUES 


Unhappy  and  helpless  is  the  soul  that  is  haunted 
and  paralyzed  by  a  fear  of  death.  Unhappy  and 
decadent  is  a  State  which  is  composed  of  citizens 
thus  under  sentence  of  death.  They  will  accomplish 
nothing  great  for  themselves  or  for  their  country. 
The  irony  of  things  is  too  much  for  us,  unless  we  are 
immortal. 

Hazlitt  says  of  Cavanagh,  a  famous  fives  player 
of  the  time:  “The  noisy  shout  of  the  ring  happily 
stood  him  in  stead  of  the  unheard  voice  of  posterity.” 
Yes,  for  fives,  for  games,  for  trifles,  the  noisy  shout 
of  the  moment  suffices.  But  to  do  great  things, 
long  things  and  lasting,  it  is  idle  to  depend  on  that 
noisy  shout.  What  does  the  ring  know  of  its  bene¬ 
factors  and  heroes?  For  a  man  to  do  greatly  it  is 
necessary  to  be  independent  of  to-day’s  applause 
or  of  the  evening’s  uncertain  wage.  Some  holier 
voice  must  sound  in  his  heart;  not  the  ring  of  visible 
onlookers,  but  Eternity,  like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and 
endless  light,  must  be  his  tribunal.  How  else  can  life 
be  nobly  lived,  or  any  worthy  result  be  harvested  ? 
The  limits  of  a  man’s  life  are  not  birth  and  death,  but 
birth  and  Forever.  Now,  the  failure  to  give  worth 
to  life  apart  from  these  regulative  ideas,  Love,  God, 
and  Eternity,  is,  if  one  rightly  considers,  the  ratifica¬ 
tion  of  those  ideas.  For  we  can  have  no  proof  of 
anything  stronger  than  the  fact  that  it  is  necessary 
to  the  best  and  highest  life.  If  it  were  conceivable 
that  Love  and  God  and  Eternity  were  only  ideas, 
destitute  of  reality  or  concrete  existence,  we  should 


LIFE 


347 


be  justified  in  assuming  them.  These  should  be 
our  postulates,  because  from  them  we  can  start  to  live 
serenely,  joyously,  and  effectively. 

If  they  should  prove  hereafter  not  to  be;  if  we 
should  plunge  into  forgetfulness  at  death  and  cease 
to  be,  defrauded  of  our  dream  —  the  very  supposi¬ 
tion  becomes  impious  as  we  think  more  seriously 
about  it  —  yet  we  should  have  done  well,  for  we 
should  have  shaped  and  carried  on  our  brief  life 
on  the  grandest  and  noblest  supposition  which  we 
could  frame,  we  should  have  followed  the  instincts 
which  verify  themselves  within  us  as  the  best  we 
know. 

For  the  march  of  life  we  must  have  some  banner 
floating  over  us,  some  music  to  put  vigour  into  our 
steps,  some  Leader  who  directs  and  inspires  us.  The 
conscious  universe  will  not  reproach  us  because, 
mortals,  weak  and  limited,  we  marched,  with  love 
as  the  banner  floating  over  us,  to  the  music  of  eter¬ 
nity  and  under  the  leadership  of  God.  On  the  other 
hand,  what  powers,  seen  or  unseen,  can  greatly 
applaud  the  paltry  march  of  the  human  atoms,  each 
one  selfish,  living  to  himself  and  falling  by  the  way 
into  the  unconscious  dust,  moving  only  to  the  dirge 
of  death,  led  by  nothing  and  no  one  but  blind  appe¬ 
tites  and  unverified  surmise  ? 

But  when  your  life  is  thus  conceived  in  the  sweep 
of  eternity,  a  moment  in  a  succession  which  has  a 
purpose  and  a  progressive  goal,  when  the  length  and 
the  certainty  of  the  years  are  subordinated  to  the 


348 


GREAT  ISSUES 


assurance  of  the  great  Forever,  you  can  fix  your  aims 
and  adjust  your  activities  on  a  noble  scale.  You  can 
approach  the  task  which  harmonizes  with  your 
convictions  and  your  capacities,  you  can  set  about  it 
and  continue  in  it  serenely  to  the  end.  Meanwhile 
each  day  acquires  its  absolute  value,  and  can  be  lived 
with  an  artistic  completeness.  The  now  has  become 
significant  precisely  because  it  is  eternal.  Each  day 
is  a  piece  of  the  coloured  glass  to  be  fitted  into  the 
whole  mosaic.  It  can  be  selected,  cut,  and  ad¬ 
justed  with  love  and  delight.  The  day,  though  one 
of  an  infinite  series,  is  complete  in  itself,  a  pulse 
in  the  eternal  music,  beautiful  and  precious,  not 
without  its  immortality  in  the  growing  sum  of  a 
soul’s  life  and  of  the  spiritual  experience  of  the 
whole. 

Therefore  let  each  day  be  approached  with  in¬ 
sight  and  determination.  This  day  is  to  be  lived, 
not  slipped  through.  Let  it  have  its  hours  of  devo¬ 
tion,  its  intercourse  with  God,  its  hallowing  influences 
by  which  the  Divine  obtains  free  access  to  the  springs 
of  being.  Let  it  have  its  hours  of  work,  work  neces¬ 
sary  for  the  daily  bread,  work,  if  possible,  service¬ 
able  in  itself,  to  the  world,  a  valid  contribution  to 
the  whole  life  which  is  being  lived  under  God’s  eye 
to-day.  Let  the  recreation  be  joyful  and  clean, 
leaving  no  bitter  dregs  in  the  cup,  no  stains  or  strains 
on  the  soul.  The  day  has  its  numerous  points  of 
contact  with  other  souls.  Here  is  the  great  oppor¬ 
tunity.  It  was  one  of  Scott’s  noblest  characteristics, 


LIFE 


349 


as  it  appears  in  his  journal,  that  if  he  was  depressed 
and  miserable,  he  would  take  care  to  conceal  it  from 
all  who  were  in  the  house,  determined  that  the  trouble 
should  not  be  aggravated  by  making  other  people 
wretched. 

In  every  encounter  with  others  there  is  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  honour  and  victory.  A  good  day  is  often 
made  up,  not  so  much  of  its  deep  devotions,  its  strenu¬ 
ous  activities,  its  planned  recreations,  as  of  the  pass¬ 
ing  words  and  smiles,  the  spiritual  emanations  and 
radiations,  which  give  to  others  the  sense  of  joy,  or 
beauty,  or  love.  As  a  painter  puts  the  colours  on 
his  canvas,  eagerly,  lovingly,  so  you  may  touch  soul 
after  soul  throughout  the  day  with  some  lasting  colour 
from  the  palette  of  God  which  is  in  your  hands.  A 
picture  is  made  by  minute  touches.  A  day  is  made 
by  its  details. 

“Count  that  day  lost  whose  low  descending  sun 
Views  from  thy  hand  no  worthy  action  done.” 

Often  our  worthiest  action  will  be  only  a  word,  a 
peculiar  intonation  of  the  voice,  a  way  of  grasping  a 
hand. 

Sometimes  the  worthiest  action  will  be  a  silent 
struggle  in  the  breast  and  an  inward  victory.  Fre¬ 
quently  the  worthiest  action  will  be  a  prayer  or  an 
aspiration. 

No  day  therefore  need  be  lost.  You  may  bear 
yourself  in  such  a  manner,  you  may  so  sit  at  the  table 
of  life,  among  the  indiscriminate  guests,  you  may 


35° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


employ  your  faculties,  whatever  they  are,  in  such  a 
spirit,  that  the  day’s  life  will  be  an  achievement, 
another  piece  of  coloured  glass  fitted  into  the  mosaic. 
You  may  thank  God  for  that  day;  and  others  may 
silently  thank  Him  that  you  lived  it. 


CHAPTER  XII 


DEATH 

Life  is  good,  very  good.  Death  also  is  good, 
though  we  hesitate  to  say  very  good,  for  there  is  a 
fear  in  it.  Awe  gathers  around  the  name,  and  at 
times  the  King  of  Terrors  seems  the  only  suitable 
description  of  that  shadow  feared  of  man.  How 
vague  and  unexplored  it  seems: 

“The  other  shape, 

If  shape  it  might  be  called  that  shape  had  none 
Distinguishable  in  member,  joint,  or  limb; 

Or  substance  might  be  called  that  shadow  seemed, 

For  each  seemed  either;  black  it  stood  as  night, 

Fierce  as  ten  furies,  terrible  as  hell, 

And  shook  a  dreadful  dart;  what  seemed  his  head 
The  likeness  of  a  kingly  crown  had  on.” 

And  yet  death  is  good,  intrinsically  good,  good  as 
life.  There  is  only  one  fault  which  has  invested  the 
Angel  Death  with  these  grisly  horrors:  the  fault  is 
not  in  death,  nor  in  God,  but  in  us.  The  apostle 
uttered  a  deep  and  all-inclusive  truth  when  he  said, 
“  The  sting  of  death  is  sin.”  But  for  sin,  death  would 
be  sweet  and  beautiful  —  beautiful  as  sleep,  and  as 
suggestive  of  the  awaking.  There  is  a  misreading 

351 


352 


GREAT  ISSUES 


of  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  which  makes  death  the 
result  of  sin,  and  commits  Paul  to  the  untenable  and 
obviously  untrue  doctrine  that  before  men  sinned 
death  was  not  in  the  world,  nor,  but  for  that  sin, 
would  it  have  entered.  The  rich  records  of  the  fossil- 
iferous  rocks,  built  up  of  dead  organisms  ages  before 
man  appeared  on  the  earth,  would  in  this  case  con¬ 
vict  the  Bible  of  error.  But  this  is  a  misunderstand¬ 
ing,  for  Paul  does  not  mean  by  death  physical  death. 
He  knew  well  that  death  existed  before  and  apart 
from  human  sin.  But  he  means  by  death  that  horror 
—  that  vague  possibility  of  hell  and  torture  —  which 
sin  has  introduced  into  the  idea  of  death.  A  quo¬ 
tation  from  Professor  Stevens,  though  long,  may  be 
welcome  to  the  reader  who  has  felt  this  difficulty  in 
the  New  Testament  conception  of  death:  “Physi¬ 
ology  regards  death  as  the  law  to  which  all  organisms 
are  subject  by  their  very  nature.  What  standing 
ground  can  there  be  left  for  the  view  of  Paul,  that 
physical  death  is  the  consequence  of  sin  ?  There  is  a 
measure  of  inconsistency  here,  though  not  of  the 
sort  which  is  sometimes  asserted.  Jewish  religious 
thought,  in  which  Paul’s  view  was  rooted,  could  not 
look  at  death  from  the  standpoint  of  natural  science. 
Death  was  viewed  not  as  a  law  of  all  created  organ¬ 
isms,  but  in  its  ethical  aspects.  That  which  con¬ 
stituted  the  essence  of  death  to  the  Hebrew  mind 
was  not  physical  dissolution,  but  the  weakness,  sick¬ 
ness,  and  sorrow  which  are  its  accompaniments 
here,  and  especially  the  dread  of  the  dark  underworld, 


DEATH 


353 


the  land  of  shadows  and  forgetfulness  into  which 
death  ushers  the  soul.  The  word  ‘death ’  had  widely 
different  associations  for  the  Hebrew  mind  from  what 
it  has  for  the  physiologist.  The  word  ‘life’  has 
equally  different  meanings.  Paul  could  say  that 
Christ  has  abolished  death/  although  he  knew  per¬ 
fectly  well  that  physical  dissolution  is  the  lot  of  all 
bodily  organisms.  For  the  Christian  death  has  been 
transformed  by  redemption  into  departure  to  be  with 
Christ.2  All  things  are  his  who  belongs  to  Christ, 
including  life  and  death,3  because  Christ  has  made 
death  the  gateway  into  His  eternal  joy.  As  a  mere 
physiological  fact  —  the  fact  of  physical  dissolution 
—  death  remains  what  it  was  before.  But  by  a 
Jewish  mind  death  is  not  regarded  as  a  mere  physio¬ 
logical  phenomenon.  When  Paul  says  that  death 
entered  into  the  world  and  has  continued  to  hold 
sway  over  mankind  in  consequence  of  sin,  we  should 
not,  in  order  to  resolve  the  difficulty  in  question,  jump 
to  the  conclusion,  as  many  expositors  have  done,  that 
moral  and  not  physical  death  is  meant.  We  should 
rather  remember  what  death  connotes  to  the  Jewish 
mind,  which  does  not  separate  the  physical  from  the 
moral  after  the  manner  of  natural  science,  but  finds 
the  primary  significance  of  the  fact  of  death  in  its 
ethical  aspects.  It  is  sometimes  said:  On  Paul’s 
principles  we  should  be  required  to  suppose  that,  had 
sin  never  entered  the  world  all  the  human  beings 
that  ever  lived  would  still  be  living  on  earth.  The 

1  2  Tim.  i.  io.  2  Phil.  i.  23.  3 1  Cor.  iii.  22. 

2  A 


354 


GREAT  ISSUES 


objection  only  shows  how  the  real  import  of  Paul’s 
doctrine  may  be  missed  by  making  physical  death 
mean  in  Paul  just  what  it  means  in  biology.  Paul’s 
thought  would  lead  to  the  idea  that,  had  there  been 
no  sin,  death,  with  its  accompaniments  of  sorrow, 
pain,  and  fear,  would  not  have  been.  But  some 
other  transition  or  cessation  of  earthly  existence 
(which  would  be  death  in  the  sense  of  biology)  would 
not  thereby  be  excluded.  .  .  .  Practically  the  reli¬ 
gious  motive  of  Paul’s  doctrine  was  that  the  sting  of 
death  is  sin.1  It  is  sin  which  makes  death  terrible; 
Redemption  robs  it  of  its*  terrors.  Theoretically 
Paul  held  something  more  than  this.  But  what  was 
more  than  this  was  incidental  to  his  thought  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  his  Jewish  training,  and  was  not  essential 
to  his  view  of  religion.”  2 

Death  in  itself  is  good,  a  point  in  the  wise  and 
beneficent  order  of  things.  “After  life’s  battle,” 
says  Arrian,  “  God,  like  a  wise  general,  sounds  a 
recall.”  Death  has  become  suspect,  terrible,  the 
supreme  enemy,  only  because  sin  has  broken  the 
connection  with  God  and  cast  upon  the  unknown 
future  the  lurid  fires  of  its  passion  and  disorder. 
Directly  sin  is  removed  —  or  even  so  far  as  it  is 
ignored  —  death  assumes  its  unobtrusive  place  in 
the  plan  of  organic  evolution  —  an  event  not  to  be 
dreaded  nor  to  be  desired,  but  to  be  accepted  with 

1  i  Cor.  xv.  56. 

2  “The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament/’  p.  352.  T.  &  T. 
Clark. 


DEATH 


355 


perfect  equanimity,  and,  in  the  fulness  of  Christian 
hope,  with  triumphant  joy. 

They  say  that  children  have  no  fear  of  death. 

“’Tis  the  purblind 

Dim  sense  of  after  years  that  makes  our  monsters. 

The  earth  hath  none  to  children  and  to  angels. 

Eyes  weak  with  vigil,  seared  with  scalding  tears, 

Betray  us,  and  we  start  at  death  and  phantoms 
Because  they  are  pale.”  1 

Like  the  animals,  children  suffer  pain,  and  are 
restless  in  disease,  but  death  does  not  trouble  them. 
It  comes  to  them  unknowing,  and  has  done  with  them 
before  they  are  aware. 

Something  of  the  child  element  remains  in  all 
humanity,  and  a  great  proportion  of  mankind  face 
death  without  any  undue  apprehensions.  Perhaps 
most  men  pass  the  shadow  with  their  eyes  screened, 
and  are  unconscious  that  they  are  dying.  Indeed, 
where  death  comes,  not  by  disease,  but  by  violence, 
the  average  man,  though  he  be  a  criminal  on  the 
scaffold,  maintains  a  brave  show.  Thus  Clootz, 
who  published  “Evidences  of  the  Mohammedan 
Religion,”  when  brought  to  the  guillotine,  March 
24,  1794,  “still  with  an  air  of  polished  sarcasm  en¬ 
deavours  to  jest,  to  offer  cheering  arguments  of  ma¬ 
terialism;  he  requested  to  be  executed  last  ‘in  order 
to  establish  certain  principles,’  which  hitherto  I 
think,”  says  Carlyle  sardonically,  “Philosophy  has 

1  “The  Roman,”  p.  81.  Sidney  Dobell. 


356 


GREAT  ISSUES 


got  no  good  of.”  1  And  Danton  at  the  foot  of  the 
scaffold  was  heard  to  ejaculate,  “O  my  wife,  my 
well  beloved,  I  shall  never  see  thee  more  then, 
but - ”  interrupting  himself  —  “  Danton,  no  weak¬ 

ness!”  And  to  Samson  the  headsman,  “Thou  wilt 
show  my  head  to  the  people  —  it  is  worth  seeing !  ” 
It  is  theatrical,  we  say,  but  yet  it  argues  the  strength 
of  the  human  heart,  or  the  shorn  terrors  of  death, 
that  one  can  keep  up  the  miming  under  the  stroke  of 
such  an  execution. 

There  is  a  deep  well  of  truth  in  the  noble  stoicism 
of  Cleanthes,  who,  advised  by  the  doctor  not  to  eat, 
for  an  ulcer  on  the  tongue,  cured  the  ulcer  by  two 
days’  fast,  but  then  refused  to  eat,  saying,  “Since  I 
have  gone  so  far  on  the  road  it  is  a  pity  not  to  finish  the 
journey.”  Nor  can  we  deny  fortitude  and  benignity 
to  Petronius,  the  disciple  of  a  very  different  school, 
who,  having  taken  poison,  talked  gaily  to  the  last 
of  the  current  songs  and  epigrams. 

Socrates  showed  for  all  time  how  serenely  and 
unselfishly  the  man  of  high  thoughts  can  die.  “It 
is  time  to  wash,”  he  said,  “  for  I  think  it  better  to  wash 
before  drinking  the  poison  and  not  to  give  trouble 
to  the  women  to  wash  the  corpse.”  2 

Hume  should  not,  according  to  orthodox  theories, 
have  approached  death  with  much  alacrity ;  but  when 
the  sentence  of  its  approach  was  passed,  he  took  leave 
of  life  in  these  memorable  words:  “I  now  reckon 

1  Carlyle,  “French  Revolution/'  ii.  323. 

2  Phaedo,  115.  A. 


DEATH 


357 


upon  a  speedy  dissolution.  I  have  suffered  very 
little  pain  from  my  disorder;  and  what  is  more 
strange,  have,  notwithstanding  the  great  decline 
of  my  person,  never  suffered  a  moment’s  abatement 
of  spirits;  insomuch  that  were  I  to  name  the  period 
of  my  life  which  I  should  most  choose  to  pass  over 
again,  I  might  be  tempted  to  point  to  this  later  period. 
I  possess  the  same  ardour  as  ever  in  study  and  the 
same  gaiety  in  company;  I  consider  besides  that  a 
man  of  sixty-five,  by  dying,  cuts  off  only  a  few  years 
of  infirmities;  and  though  I  see  many  symptoms  of 
my  literary  reputation’s  breaking  out  at  last  with 
additional  lustre,  I  know  that  I  could  have  but  few 
years  to  enjoy  it.  It  is  difficult  to  be  more  detached 
from  life  than  I  am  at  present. 

“To  conclude  historically  with  my  own  character, 
I  am,  or  rather  was  (for  that  is  the  style  I  must  now 
use  in  speaking  of  myself,  which  emboldens  me  the 
more  to  speak  my  sentiments) ;  I  was,  I  say,  a  man  of 
mild  dispositions,  of  command  of  temper,  of  an  open, 
social,  and  cheerful  humour,  capable  of  attachment, 
but  little  susceptible  of  enmity,  and  of  great  modera¬ 
tion  in  all  my  passions.  Even  my  love  of  literary 
fame,  my  ruling  passion,  never  soured  my  temper, 
notwithstanding  my  frequent  disappointments.  My 
company  was  not  unacceptable  to  the  young  and 
careless,  as  well  as  to  the  studious  and  literary;  and 
as  I  took  a  particular  pleasure  in  the  company  of 
modest  women,  I  had  no  reason  to  be  displeased  with 
the  reception  I  met  with  from  them.  In  a  word, 


35» 


GREAT  ISSUES 


though  most  men  any  wise  eminent  have  found  reason 
to  complain  of  calumny,  I  never  was  touched  or 
even  attacked  by  her  baleful  tooth;  and  though  I 
wantonly  exposed  myself  to  the  rage  of  both  civil  and 
religious  factions,  they  seemed  to  be  disarmed  in  my 
behalf  of  their  wonted  fury.  My  friends  never  had 
occasion  to  vindicate  any  one  circumstance  of  my 
character  or  conduct;  not  but  that  the  zealots,  we 
may  well  suppose,  would  have  been  glad  to  invent 
and  propagate  any  story  to  my  disadvantage,  but 
they  could  never  find  any  which  they  thought  would 
wear  the  face  of  probability.  I  cannot  say  there  is 
no  vanity  in  making  this  funeral  oration  of  myself, 
but  I  hope  it  is  not  a  misplaced  one;  and  this  is  a 
matter  of  fact  which  is  easily  cleared  and  ascer¬ 
tained.”  1 

This  is  certainly  the  philosophical  temper  in  per¬ 
fection.  As  the  sceptical  philosopher  enters  the 
portals  of  the  tomb  “with  no  abatement  of  spirits,” 
we  may  at  least  argue  that  death  is  not  in  itself,  even 
apart  from  considerations  of  future  life  and  felicity, 
anything  but  good. 

But  philosophy  is  no  monopoly  of  the  philosophers. 
Even  Orsini,  who  had  killed  several  people  with 
the  bomb  which  was  intended  to  blow  up  Napoleon 
III.,  was  perfectly  calm  as  he  mounted  the  scaffold, 
and  said  to  Pierre,  his  companion  in  death,  with  a 
gentle  tone  of  remonstrance,  “Try  to  be  calm,  my 
friend;  try  to  be  calm.” 


1  Huxley’s  “Life  of  Hume,”  p.  42. 


DEATH 


359 


The  contemplation,  therefore,  of  the  exits  made 
from  life,  even  by  persons  who  are  unfortified  by 
religious  hope,  and  certainly  unassured  of  a  future 
felicity,  is  singularly  calming.  Death  is  seen  to  be, 
even  at  the  lowest,  a  beneficent  order  of  God,  the 
necessary  counterpart  of  earthly  life,  if  not  the 
transition  to  life  of  another  kind. 

Now,  before  passing  to  that  irradiation  of  death 
which  Christ  has  brought  into  the  world  by  overcom¬ 
ing  sin,  let  us  take  as  a  foil  the  manly  and  human 
consolation  which  could  be  addressed  to  the  bereaved 
just  before  the  advent  of  our  Lord.  Here  is  a  letter 
from  Servius  Sulpicius  to  Cicero,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  death  of  Tullia,  Cicero’s  dearly-loved  daughter. 
It  is  dated  from  Athens,  in  April,  b.c.  45:  “When 
I  was  informed  of  the  demise  of  Tullia,  your  daugh¬ 
ter,  assuredly  in  proportion  as  I  was  bound  to  do  I 
felt  the  burden  and  sorrow,  and  shared  your  trouble 
with  you,  as,  if  I  had  been  on  the  spot,  I  would  not 
have  failed  you,  but  would  have  shown  you  my  grief 
face  to  face.  Although  this  kind  of  consolation  is 
poor  and  bitter,  because  the  very  people  through 
whom  it  ought  to  be  effected  are  themselves  af¬ 
flicted  with  the  suffering,  and  only  with  many  tears 
make  the  attempt,  so  that  they  seem  rather  to  need 
the  consolation  of  others  than  to  be  able  to  offer  to 
others  their  services,  yet  I  have  resolved  to  write 
shortly  to  you  the  things  which  at  present  come  into 
my  mind,  not  that  I  think  they  will  escape  you,  but 
that  possibly  you  are  hindered  by  grief  from  per- 


36° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


ceiving  them.  Why  should  your  private  grief  so 
greatly  move  you?  Consider  how  fortune  has  dealt 
with  us  up  till  now:  that  those  things  are  snatched 
from  us  which  ought  to  be  no  less  dear  than  children, 
country,  honour,  dignity,  and  all  our  public  offices. 
What  could  be  added  to  our  grief  by  this  additional 
discomfort?  Or  ought  not  a  mind  trained  in  such 
experiences  to  be  callous  and  set  a  lower  value  on 
everything?  Or  it  is  for  her  sake,  I  presume,  you 
grieve?  How  often  you,  too,  must  have  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  —  I  have  often  reached  it  myself 
—  that  at  such  times  as  these  they  are  not  the  worst 
off  who  have  been  permitted  by  a  natural  process 
to  exchange  life  for  death.  But  what  was  there 
which  at  this  time  could  induce  her  to  live?  What 
possession?  What  hope?  What  mental  comfort? 
That  she  might  pass  her  life  united  to  some  young 
man  of  position  ?  It  was  in  your  power,  I  presume, 
to  choose  a  son-in-law,  such  as  your  position  de¬ 
manded  from  our  present  set  of  young  men,  one  under 
whose  protection  you  would  think  your  child  safe ! 1 
Or  that  she  might  have  children,  in  the  sight  of  whose 
prosperity  she  might  rejoice,  who  might  hold  inde¬ 
pendently  the  property  they  inherit?  might  seek 
public  offices  in  due  order?  might  enjoy  their  liberty 
in  the  State  and  in  private  life?  Which  of  these 
has  not  been  taken  away  before  it  was  given  ?  2 

1  She  had  been  divorced  by  Dolabella. 

2  Sc.  by  Caesar’s  usurpation,  under  which  the  republican 
malcontents  were  smarting. 


DEATH 


361 


“But  it  is  an  evil  to  lose  our  children!  An  evil, 
no  doubt,  were  it  not  worse  to  bear  and  endure  what 
we  do.  A  circumstance  which  brought  me  consider¬ 
able  consolation  I  should  like  to  tell  you,  if  per¬ 
chance  it  may  lessen  your  grief.  Returning  from 
Asia,  when  I  was  sailing  from  ^Rgina  towards  Meg- 
ara,  I  began  to  look  round  over  the  places ;  behind 
me  was  iEgina,  before  me  Megara,  to  the  right 
Piraeus,  to  the  left  Corinth;  towns  which  once  were 
flourishing  now  lie  fallen  and  in  ruins  before  my  eyes. 
I  began  to  think  within  myself:  ‘Why,  we  small 
mortals  are  indignant  if  one  of  us  dies  or  is  killed, 
whose  life  ought  to  be  shorter,  when  on  one  spot  the 
corpses  of  so  many  towns  lie  exposed.  Will  you 
check  yourself,  Servius,  and  remember  that  you  were 
born  a  man?’  Believe  me,  I  was  comforted  in  no 
small  measure  by  that  thought.  Set  the  same 
consideration,  if  you  please,  before  your  own  eyes. 
Now  at  one  time  so  many  most  illustrious  men  have 
perished ;  from  the  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  people 
so  much  has  been  taken ;  all  the  provinces  have  been 
convulsed.  In  the  tiny  soul  of  one  little  woman, 
if  loss  has  been  experienced,  are  you  so  greatly 
moved?  who  if  she  had  not  met  her  doom  now, 
yet  would  have  had  to  die  a  few  years  later,  because 
she  was  born  human  ! 

“Do  you,  as  well  as  I,  call  mind  and  thought  from 
these  things  and  rather  remember  those  things  which 
are  worthy  of  your  character,  that  she  lived  as  long 
as  she  ought  —  lived  as  long  as  freedom  —  that  she 


362 


GREAT  ISSUES 


saw  you  her  father  praetor,  consul,  and  augur,  that 
she  was  married  in  the  highest  circles,  that  she  ran 
the  whole  round  of  enjoyment,  and  when  freedom 
died  departed  this  life.  What  complaint  have  you 
or  she  with  fortune  on  this  score?  Finally,  do  not 
forget  that  you  are  Cicero,  he  who  has  been  wont 
to  give  precept  and  counsel  to  others,  nor  imitate 
those  bad  doctors,  who  in  the  diseases  of  others 
profess  that  they  hold  the  science  of  medicine,  but 
cannot  cure  themselves,  but  rather  present  to  your¬ 
self  and  keep  before  your  mind  the  counsels  which 
you  are  wont  to  give  to  others. 

“There  is  no  grief  which  time  does  not  lessen 
and  soften.  That  you  should  wait  for  this  and  not 
run  to  meet  it  by  your  wisdom  is  for  you  shameful. 
And  if  the  departed  have  any  consciousness  —  such 
was  her  love  to  you  and  her  dutifulness  to  her  friends 
—  she  certainly  does  not  want  you  to  incur  that 
shame.  Give  your  dead  one  this  boon,  give  it  to 
other  friends  and  intimates  who  mourn  in  your  grief, 
give  it  to  your  country,  that  where  she  needs  it  she 
may  find  your  help  and  counsel. 

“In  fine,  since  we  have  come  into  such  a  pass  that 
we  must  consult  such  considerations,  do  not  give 
reason  for  the  supposition  that  your  sorrow  is  con¬ 
nected  not  with  a  daughter  but  with  the  political 
situation  and  the  triumph  of  the  other  party.  I  am 
ashamed  to  write  more  on  this  subject  lest  I  seem 
to  doubt  your  prudence;  therefore  with  one  more 
consideration  I  will  conclude.  We  have  seen  you 


DEATH 


3  63 


frequently  support  good  fortune  in  the  most  admi¬ 
rable  way,  and  win  great  fame  from  it.  See  to  it 
now  that  we  may  find  you  equally  able  to  bear  ad¬ 
versity,  and  that  it  is  not  to  you  a  greater  burden 
than  it  ought  to  be,  lest  of  all  the  virtues  this  alone 
be  found  wanting  in  you.  As  for  me,  when  I  know 
that  you  are  more  composed,  I  will  tell  you  what  is 
going  on  here  and  the  state  of  the  province.  Fare¬ 
well  !”  1 

How  frigid !  How  comfortless !  She  is  gone, 
but  the  times  are  bad,  and,  besides,  all  things  decay, 
and  all  men  die.  Her  life  was  fortunate,  notwith¬ 
standing  three  marriages  and  a  divorce  before  thirty. 
If  she  knows,  she  would  wish  you  to  be  calm  and 
support  your  dignity.  And  then  your  grief  may  get 
you  into  political  trouble;  and  if  excessive  it  may 
damage  your  character  for  possessing  all  the  virtues, 
fortitude  included.  How  much  better  than  all  this 
rhetoric  if  he  could  have  said,  “She  lives,  and  you 
will  meet  her  in  the  world  beyond  !” 

Nothing  could  show  more  clearly  how  the  world 
needed  a  deeper  consolation,  a  clearer  hope.  For 
that  love  must  be  tempered  and  chill  indeed  which 
can  be  consoled  by  these  obvious  moralizings  about 
a  ruined  State  and  a  decaying  world.  Nevertheless 
the  peep  into  antiquity  shows  that  death  was  not,  to 
the  dying  or  bereaved,  by  any  means  a  chief  calamity. 
Honour  is  more  esteemed,  and  even  political  safety 
than  prolonged  life.  Fear  of  death  must  be  at  the 

1  Ad  Fam.  iv.  5. 


364 


GREAT  ISSUES 


worst  a  weak  passion,  since  every  other  passion  can 
on  occasion  master  it. 

Christ  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light.  He 
drew  the  sting  of  death,  for  He  overcame  sin  and 
gave  to  men  the  possibility  of  a  practical  victory  over 
it ;  in  this  way  He  opened  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to 
all  believers,  for  as  sin  disappears  heaven  appears, 
life  for  evermore.  He  delivered  those  who  through 
fear  of  death  were  all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bond¬ 
age.  A  great  voice  sounded  through  the  heavens, 
drowning  the  dirges  and  the  funeral  bells,  ‘‘Blessed 
are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from  henceforth.” 
Lecky  brought  out  by  a  pithy  contrast  the  change 
which  was  made  in  the  thoughts  of  men.  Anax¬ 
agoras,  the  philosopher,  told  that  his  son  was  dead, 
remarked,  “I  never  supposed  that  I  had  begotten 
an  immortal.”  But  a  Christian  hermit,  when  his 
father’s  death  was  announced  to  him,  exclaimed, 
“Cease  your  blasphemy;  my  father  is  immortal.”1 
Even  they  who  have  but  a  taste  of  the  Christian  ex¬ 
perience  obtain  a  foretaste  of  this  immortality,  and 
they  who  have  no  taste  of  it  yet  share  the  conviction 
which  has  penetrated  Christendom;  some  vague 
idea  that  death  has  become  the  gate  of  life,  and  that 
a  better  world  opens  out  when  this  world  is  quitted, 
has  become  the  common  hope  of  all  who  inherit  the 
Christian  tradition.  Men  feel  a  solemn  uplift  of 
the  heart,  and  catch  glimpses  of  the  visionary 
world  at  the  tomb  which  has  been  proved  incapable 
of  retaining  its  occupant. 

1  “History  of  European  Morals,”  i.  190-220. 


DEATH 


36S 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  at  no  time  surren¬ 
dered,  but  in  the  experience  of  sickness  and  decline 
gradually  held  closer  and  closer,  the  Christian  verities, 
wrote  after  an  illness:  “I  am  almost  glad  to  have 
seen  death  so  close  with  all  my  wits  about  me,  and 
not  in  the  customary  lassitude  and  disenchantment 
of  disease.  Even  thus  clearly  beheld,  I  find  him 
not  so  terrible  as  we  suppose.  But,  indeed,  with  the 
passing  of  years,  the  decay  of  strength,  the  loss  of  all 
my  old  active  and  pleasant  habits,  there  grows  more 
and  more  upon  me  that  belief  in  the  kindness  of 
this  scheme  of  things,  and  the  goodness  of  our  veiled 
God,  which  is  an  excellent  and  pacifying  compensa¬ 
tion.”  1 

That  is  a  frame  of  mind  which  comes  to  many 
through  the  diffused  Christian  hope  which  is  in  the 
air.  A  fuller  faith  gets  fuller  vision,  and  the  pros¬ 
pect  brightens.  But  the  gleam  of  Christian  faith, 
the  experience,  however  partial,  of  the  sinful  habit 
overcome,  and  of  the  ineffable  beauty  of  holiness, 
will  send 

.  .  bright  shoots  of  everlastingness” 

through  the  soul,  and  invest  with  sudden  meaning 
the  resurrection  of  Him  who  gave  the  world  this  hope, 
and  gives  the  heart  this  assurance.  This  Christian 
confidence  has  given  to  the  closing  days  of  men  who 
have  lived  strenuously  and  believed  firmly  a  trans¬ 
figuring  glory,  making  their  end  radiant  like  a  splen¬ 
did  sunset,  or  shedding  a  flood  of  unearthly  light 

1  Letters,  vol.  i.  357. 


3  66 


GREAT  ISSUES 


on  the  place  of  departure,  and  even  on  the  body  that 
is  left  behind.  The  heroic  war-worn  soul,  like  the 
pale,  ethereal  hulk  of  the  old  T  enter  air  e  in  Turner’s 
picture,  drops  quietly  down  on  rippling,  burnished 
waters,  in  the  peaceful  glow  of  the  sinking  sun,  to 
its  honourable  resting-place,  whispering  immor¬ 
tality.  Thus  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  ends  his  dazzling 
and  heroic  life  —  on  the  scaffold,  it  is  true,  but  that 
scaffold  rules  the  future.  On  the  flyleaf  of  his  Bible 
he  writes : 

“Even  such  is  time  that  takes  on  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  and  all  we  have, 

And  pays  us  but  with  age  and  dust 
Who  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 

When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 

Shut  up  the  story  of  our  days ! 

But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 

The  Lord  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust.” 

How  humble,  penitent,  and  hopeful  is  the  word 
which  from  the  scaffold  he  addresses  to  men  and  to 
God  !  “And  now  I  entreat  that  you  all  join  with  me 
in  prayer  to  that  great  God  of  heaven  whom  I  have 
so  grievously  offended,  being  a  man  full  of  all  vanity, 
who  has  lived  a  sinful  life  in  such  callings  as  have 
been  most  inducing  to  it  —  for  I  have  been  a  soldier, 
a  sailor,  and  a  courtier,  which  are  courses  of  wicked¬ 
ness  and  vice  —  that  His  almighty  goodness  will 
forgive  me,  that  He  will  cast  away  my  sins  from  me, 
and  that  He  will  receive  me  into  everlasting  life. 
So  I  take  my  leave  of  you  all,  making  my  peace  with 
God!” 


DEATH 


367 


On  what  easy  terms  has  this  far-travelled  and 
chivalrous  Christian  come  to  be  with  death!  The 
executioner,  with  all  England,  hesitated  to  behead 
King  James’s  noblest  subject,  at  the  King’s  com¬ 
mand.  He  held  back  the  axe.  “I  prithee,”  said 
Raleigh,  “let  me  see  it;  dost  thou  think  I  am  afraid 
of  it  ?”  He  felt  the  edge,  and  said  to  himself,  “This 
is  sharp  medicine,  but  it  is  a  sound  cure  for  all 
diseases.”  As  he  knelt  down  some  one  said  he 
should  lay  his  face  toward  the  east.  “  What  matter,” 
he  replied,  “how  the  head  lie  so  the  heart  be  right  ?” 
After  he  had  prayed  for  a  little  he  gave  the  signal, 
and  as  the  headsman  was  reluctant  to  do  his  duty, 
he  called  on  him  to  strike.  So  serenely,  and  carry¬ 
ing  manifestly  the  banner  of  victory,  did  he  go 
through  the  dreaded  portal.1 

These  words  of  good  and  heroic  spirits  on  the 
scaffold  are  among  the  surest  encouragements  of 
the  fearful.  Other  men  have  not  better  served  their 
kind  by  long  and  useful  lives  than  these  by  their 
dauntless  words  under  the  gleam  of  the  axe.  Thus 
Sir  Thomas  More:  “Pluck  up  thy  spirits,  man,  and 
be  not  afraid  to  do  thine  office.  My  neck  is  very  short ; 
take  heed  therefore  thou  strike  not  awry,  for  saving 
of  thine  honesty.”  Bishop  Fisher  said  to  the  exe¬ 
cutioner  who  knelt  and  asked  his  forgiveness:  “I 
forgive  thee  with  all  my  heart,  and  I  trust  thou 
shalt  see  me  overcome  this  storm  lustily.”  And  so 
the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  in  answer  to  the  same  request : 

1  History  of  England,  S.  R.  Gardiner,  iii.  151, 152. 


368 


GREAT  ISSUES 


“  God  forgive  thee,  and  I  do.  And  when  thou  dost 
thine  office,  I  pray  thee  do  it  well,  and  bring  me  out 
of  this  world  quickly,  and  God  have  mercy  on  thee  I”1 
Surely  that  must  be  a  lighted  way  down  which 
these  brave  souls  step  so  cheerily  —  or  at  least  it 
must  open  to  the  light. 

Nor  is  it  only  on  the  scaffold,  and  in  the  pathos 
of  premature  and  sudden  departures,  that  the  same 
heartening  note  sounds  out.  No  scaffold  gives  a 
more  commanding  platform  for  addressing  posterity 
than  the  life  of  a  great  and  industrious  man,  who, 
like  Gladstone,  has  wrought  for  many  years  in  the 
eyes  of  men.  Thus  the  words  spoken  calmly  in  the 
falling  shadows  pervade  the  world  with  reassurance 
and  encouragement:  “The  attitude  in  which  I 
endeavoured  to  fix  myself  was  that  of  a  soldier  on 
parade  in  a  line  of  men  drawn  up  ready  to  march,  and 
waiting  for  the  word  of  command.  I  sought  to  be 
in  preparation  for  prompt  obedience,  feeling  no 
desire  to  go,  but  on  the  other  hand  without  reluctance, 
because  firmly  convinced  that  whatever  He  ordains 
for  us  is  best,  best  both  for  us  and  for  all.”  2 

The  most  English  of  these  testaments  of  courage, 
however,  is  perhaps  that  of  the  only  king  who  in 
England  has  earned  the  title  Great.  “So  long 
as  I  have  lived,”  said  Alfred  at  the  close,  “I  en¬ 
deavoured  to  live  worthily.”  That  modest,  un¬ 
excited  estimate  of  life,  in  the  shadow  of  death, 

1  See  Hare’s  “Guesses  at  Truth,”  124. 

2  Morley’s  “  Life  of  Gladstone,”  iii.  320. 


DEATH 


36  9 


is  the  perfect  expression  of  the  Christian  faith  as  it 
has  embodied  itself  in  the  English  character.  Per¬ 
haps  one  other  dying  utterance  of  a  great  English¬ 
man  may  be  set  beside  it.  The  author  of  the 
“Ecclesiastical  Polity,”  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
the  English  genius,  as  the  strenuous  endeavour  to 
find  in  matters  spiritual  the  law  and  order  which  it  is 
the  Englishman’s  pride  to  secure  in  matters  political, 
uttered  in  the  confidence  of  faith  what  is  the  desire 
of  every  Englishman  who  is  truly  Christian,  “I  go 
to  a  world  of  order.”  There,  with  Hooker,  may  we 
who  have  striven  unavailingly  for  truth  and  love  in 
their  combination  be  gathered ! 

In  contrast  with  this  spirit  of  English  Christianity 
in  the  face  of  death,  we  may  set  the  Italian  spirit, 
expressed  to  perfection  in  the  closing  days  of  Leo  IX. 
“On  March  12,  1059,  he  left  Benevento  under  the 
escort  of  the  Norman  Humfrey.  He  was  obliged  to 
rest  twelve  days  at  Capua.  He  arrived  at  Rome, 
but  repressed  the  universal  joy  by  melancholy  inti¬ 
mations  of  his  approaching  death,  too  visibly  con¬ 
firmed  by  his  helpless  condition.  His  calm  departure 
reaches  sublimity.  He  ordered  his  coffin  to  be 
carried  to  St.  Peter’s;  he  reposed  on  a  couch  by  its 
side.  There  he  gave  his  last  admonitions  to  the 
ecclesiastics  around,  entreating  them  to  abstain  from 
simony  and  the  alienation  of  the  estates  of  the 
Church;  then  he  received  the  last  Sacraments.  He 
rose  with  difficulty  and  looked  into  his  coffin.  “  Be¬ 
hold,  my  brethren,  the  mutability  of  human  things. 

2  B 


37° 


GREAT  ISSUES 


The  cell  which  was  my  dwelling  when  a  monk  ex¬ 
panded  into  yonder  specious  palace;  it  shrinks 
again  into  this  narrow  coffin.”  The  next  morning 
he  was  dead.1 

In  the  closing  verses  of  Leo’s  namesake,  Leo  XIII., 
this  somewhat  stoical  resignation  takes  a  more 
Christian  turn.  The  aged  Pope  was  most  anxious 
to  see  his  Nocturna  Ingemiscentis  Animat  Medi- 
tatio  in  print  before  he  died.  It  is  a  human  docu¬ 
ment  of  lasting  interest,  for  Leo  XIII.  was  the  strong¬ 
est  and  best  man  who  occupied  the  Holy  See  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  elegiacs  may  be  rendered 
in  English: 

“Leo,  the  fatal  hour  draws  near;  ’tis  time  for  you  to  go, 

To  take  the  endless  road  to  bliss,  or  else  to  woe! 

The  gifts  which  God  in  bounty  gave  might  bid  you  hope 
for  heaven, 

The  fatal  keys,  the  weighty  charge,  for  so  long  given. 

But  think  of  these  with  sighs,  for  he  ’mong  nations  who 
shall  be 

Exalted  highest,  miserable  pays  sharper  penalty. 

I  tremble:  then  there  comes  a  form  sweet,  and  a  sweeter 
voice  of  cheer, 

Which  sounds  along  my  heart  and  says:  Why  should  you 
fear? 

Why  trace  and  mourn  your  vanished  days?  for  Christ  is 
near,  and  as  you  pray, 

He,  pitying,  at  the  cry  of  faith  will  wash  your  guilt  away.”  2 

1  Milman’s  “Latin  Christianity,”  iii.  408. 

2  “Fatalis  ruit  hora,  Leo;  jam  tempus  abire  est 
Pro  meritisque  viam  carpere  perpetuam. 


DEATH 


371 


That  is  a  truly  human  and  infinitely  pathetic  exit. 
The  Pope,  who  for  so  many  years  has  held  the  keys 
of  the  kingdom,  and  spoken  as  the  Vicar  of  Christ, 
steals  at  the  last  to  the  feet  of  Christ,  and  finds  in 
Him,  and  Him  alone,  his  peace. 

But  we  have  not  yet  touched  that  wellspring  of  holy 
joy  which  may  be  described  as  the  more  abundant 
entrance,  that  triumph  in  death  which  has  been  wit¬ 
nessed  in  certain  Christians,  whose  lives  have  been 
a  conscious  recollection  of  the  grace  of  Christ,  or  a 
whole-hearted  service  in  making  known  that  grace 
to  others.  If  we  could  pass  before  our  minds  the 
closing  scenes,  and  hear  the  dying  testimonies,  of  the 
saints,  apostles,  martyrs,  of  the  Christian  faith,  we 
should  have  a  swelling  chorus  of  the  victory  over 
death  which  was  achieved  by  the  passion  and  resur¬ 
rection  of  our  Lord. 

These  transactions  on  the  bank  of  the  dividing 
river,  and  the  messengers  sent  from  the  other  side  to 
surprise,  to  cheer,  and  to  enrapture  those  who  are 


Quae-te  sors  maneat?  Caelum  sperare  jubebant 
Largus  contulerat  quae  tibi  dona  Deus 
Et  summae  claves,  immenso  pondere  munus 
Tot  tibi  gestum  annos:  haec  meditare  gemens, 
Qui  namque  in  populis  excelso  praestat  honore 
Hei  misero !  poenas  acrius  inde  luet. 

Haec  inter  trepido.  Dulcis  succurrit  imago 
Dulcior  atque  animo  vox  sonat  alloquii: 

Quid  te  tanta  premit  formido?  Aevique  peracti 
Quid  seriem  repetens  tristia  corda  foves  ? 
Christus  adest  miserans  humili  veniamque  roganti 
Erratum,  ah  tides,  eluet  omne  tibi.” 


372 


GREAT  ISSUES 


about  to  cross,  are  not,  as  some  suppose,  morbid 
creations  of  the  sick  fancy,  or  hysterical  extrava¬ 
gances  of  the  homiletic  spirit.  As  it  becomes  more 
recognized  to  be  a  duty  of  the  psychologist  to  examine 
the  varieties  of  religious  experience,  so  it  might 
well  be  a  recognized  part  of  Christian  apologetics 
to  record  and  to  appreciate  those  scenes  in  which 
the  windows  are  thrown  open  and  the  light  of 
eternity  streams  in. 

Let  us  discard  the  morbid,  the  hysterical,  and  the 

unmanly.  But  let  us  also  take  note  that,  in  such  and 

* 

such  a  way,  Christians  who  have  greatly  lived  greatly 
die,  filling  the  long  corridors  of  death  with  echoing 
songs  of  exultation  and  the  light  of  a  dawning  glory. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  the  final  bulletin  concerning 
Jefferson,  one  of  the  most  cultivated  and  most  de¬ 
voted  of  the  early  band  of  missionaries  to  the  South 
Seas:  “Death  was  not  to  him  the  king  of  terrors; 
he  had  been  for  a  long  time  past  awaiting  for  and 
desiring  his  dismission  from  a  sinful  and  diseased 
body,  yet  often  expressed  a  thankful  acquiescence  in 
the  will  of  God;  and  though  he  did  not  experience 
any  extraordinary  raptures  of  joy,  he,  in  general,  for 
a  considerable  time  past  enjoyed  a  settled  peace  of 
conscience  and  a  firm  persuasion  of  his  interest  in 
Christ.  Some  of  his  last  words  were,  ‘  Comfortable, 
comfortable;  sweet,  sweet;  glory,  glory  be  to  Him !  ” 

Thus  the  much-toiling  soul  approaches  its  haven 
of  rest,  its  Ithaca  in  the  sea  of  eternity,  with  the 
sense  that  all  is  well  and  God  is  to  be  thanked. 


DEATH 


373 


Another  veteran  of  the  mission-field,  Dr.  Edkins, 
offered  a  rare  glimpse  into  the  unseen  world  as  he 
approached  the  portal.  He  was  eighty-three.  The 
day  before  his  death  he  suddenly  exclaimed,  “Won¬ 
derful!  Wonderful !”  “What  is  wonderful?” 
asked  his  wife,  who  was  nursing  him.  “I  cannot 
tell  you,”  was  the  reply,  “but  you  will  know  to-mor¬ 
row.”  Evidently  a  scene  opens  before  the  soul  in 
death,  impressions  are  received,  voices  are  heard  — 
things  which  eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
has  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive. 

Thus  the  chamber  and  the  article  of  death  come 
to  suggest  immortality,  and  to  be  visited  with  wafts 
of  the  air  from  beyond.  Look  at  that  last  letter 
written  by  John  Stirling  to  his  mother,  only  four  days 
before  she  died;  it  is  rich  in  the  latent  evidences  of 
eternal  life:  “I  felt  myself  walking  with  you  in 
Greenwich  Park,  and  on  the  sea-shore  at  Sandgate; 
almost  even  I  seemed  a  baby  with  you  bending  over 
me.  Dear  mother,  there  is  surely  something  uniting 
us  that  cannot  perish.  I  seem  so  sure  of  a  love 
which  shall  last  and  reunite  us  that  even  the  remem¬ 
brance,  painful  as  that  is,  of  all  my  own  follies  and 
ill-tempers  cannot  shake  this  faith.  .  .  .  Since  you 
have  been  so  ill  everything  has  seemed  to  me  holier, 
loftier,  and  more  lasting,  more  full  of  hope  and  final 
joy.  .  .  .  The  recollections  of  all  you  have  been,  and 
done,  for  me  are  now  the  most  sacred  and  deepest  as 
well  as  most  beautiful  thoughts  that  abide  with  me.”  1 

1  Carlyle’s  “Life  of  John  Stirling,”  216. 


374 


GREAT  ISSUES 


A  few  months  later  he  was  entering  the  unknown 
himself,  “without  any  thought  of  fear  and  with  very 
much  of  hope.”  He  wrote  to  his  son:  “Everything 
is  so  wonderful,  great,  and  holy,  so  sad  and  yet  not 
bitter,  so  full  of  Death  and  so  bordering  on  Heaven. 
Can  you  understand  anything  of  this?  If  you  can 
you  will  begin  to  know  what  a  serious  matter  our 
Life  is.” 

What  the  Christian  hope  has  done  is  to  make 
the  borderland  between  life  and  death  a  kind  of  holy 
country,  where  the  leaves  of  the  trees  whisper,  and 
the  fruit  of  the  trees  is  for  healing,  where  the  lapse 
of  the  waters  has  an  undertone  of  music,  and  the  air 
thrills  with  a  great  expectation.  There  is  in  that 
country  a  sacred  and  solemn  joy,  which  is  more 
satisfying  than  the  festivities  which  attend  our  birth 
or  our  marriage.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  reunion 
and  finality,  the  promise  — 

“And  we  shall  sit  at  endless  feast, 

Enjoying  each  the  other’s  good.” 

The  closing  scenes  of  Sir  David  Brewster’s  life, 
in  1869,  afford  one  of  the  most  radiant  examples  on 
record  of  the  illuminated,  covered  way  which  leads  to 
eternal  life.  The  famous  man  of  science  had  reached 
the  age  of  eighty-eight.  A  delightful  conversation  is 
recorded  between  him  and  Mr.  Herdman,  which 
gives  an  incomparable  sense  of  security  and  triumph ; 
but  the  following  note  of  the  last  words  seems  to 
flood  the  grave  with  mellow  light:  “He  was  always 


DEATH 


375 


peculiarly  reverential  and  guarded  in  his  way  of 
speaking  of  Deity,  habitually  using  the  words  £  God,’ 
‘the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,’  ‘our  Saviour’;  but  on  his 
death  bed  the  sense  of  the  nearness  and  the  love  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  at  once  his  God,  his  Saviour,  and  his 
righteousness,  overcame  the  habits  of  reserve  of  a 
lifetime,  and  he  only  spoke  of  Jesus  as  a  personal, 
living,  waiting  Friend.  Once,  when  a  sense  of 
difficulty  seemed  to  cross  his  spirit,  he  said,  ‘Jesus 
will  take  me  safe  through’  with  restored  confidence. 
Another  time  the  seldom-spoken  words  came  to  my 
lips  and  I  said,  ‘You  will  see  Charlie,’  but,  gathering 
himself  up  after  a  pause,  he  answered,  as  if  in  gentle 
rebuke,  ‘I  shall  see  Jesus  who  created  all  things, 
Jesus  who  made  the  worlds;  I  shall  see  Him  as  He 
is.’  And  he  repeated,  with  that  pathetic  return 
to  his  native  Scotch,  which  was  not  uncommon  with 
him  when  greatly  interested,  ‘I  shall  see  Jesus,  and 
that  will  be  grand,’  with  an  ineffably  happy,  cheerful 
look.  ‘You  will  understand  everything  then,’  it 
was  said.  ‘  Oh,  yes,’  was  the  answer,  which  seemed 
to  come  from  a  very  fulness  of  content.  ‘I  wish 
all  learned  men  had  your  simple  faith,’  it  was  said 
at  another  time;  and  again  there  was  a  pause  and 
the  gathering  up,  and  the  words  dropped  out,  each 
with  its  own  weight  of  feeling  and  of  meaning,  ‘Yes, 
I  have  had  the  Light  for  many  years,  and  oh,  how 
bright  it  is  !  I  feel  so  safe,  so  satisfied .’  ”  1 

1“The  Home  Life  of  Sir  David  Brewster,”  p.  415,  by  Mrs. 
Gordon. 


376 


GREAT  ISSUES 


It  must  be  owned  that  death  in  such  a  cast  has 
become  beautiful  as  life,  and  even  more  beautiful,  for 
it  suggests  a  life  which,  unlike  the  earthly  life,  is  per¬ 
manent  and  satisfying. 

In  Dr.  Rendell  Harris’s  beautiful  Life  of  Frank 
Crossley,  the  modern  St.  Francis,  there  are  several 
instances  of  the  victory  over  death  which,  it  would 
seem,  might  be,  and  ought  to  be,  the  common  expe¬ 
rience  of  mankind.  Major  Crossley,  the  father, 
when  he  was  dying,  exclaimed,  “Is  this  death? 
Why,  this  is  nothing!”  Fanny  Crossley,  the  aunt, 
in  her  illness  saw  her  departed  sisters  in  the  room: 
“How  can  any  one  call  it  a  dark  valley?  It  is  all 
light  and  love !”  Then,  stretching  out  her  hands  to 
Christ,  she  whispered,  “I  could  run  to  meet  Him!” 
Frank  Crossley  himself  said  in  dying  that  “he  had 
come  to  the  River,  and  there  was  no  River  ” 

The  secret  of  such  a  victory  is  faith  in  Christ, 
who  has  vanquished  death,  a  mind  occupied  with 
Him,  a  life  passed  in  His  service.  Brigadier  Lee, 
one  of  the  heroines  of  the  Salvation  Army  in  Norway, 
was  dying,  and  when  her  husband  said  to  her,  “You 
are  not  afraid  of  death?”  she  looked  at  him  with 
clear,  surprised  eyes  and  said,  “  But  it’s  for  this  that 
I  lived!” 

And  William  Law,  the  non-juror,  after  twenty-one 
years  of  retirement  at  Kings  Cliffe  —  years  spent  in 
prayer,  meditation,  writing,  and  charity  —  died  at 
the  age  of  seventy-five  “  in  full,  vigorous  mind,  and, 
in  a  rapture  of  joy,  singing  the  angels’  hymn.” 


DEATH 


377 


And  here  I  cannot  but  record  the  passing  of  my 
friend  Lady  Rogers,  of  Birmingham,  for  it  is  too 
beautiful  to  be  locked  up  in  the  private  records  of 
those  who  loved  her.  Honoured  and  cherished,  she 
lived  the  happiest  of  lives.  She  was  always  engaged 
in  works  of  charity,  especially  among  her  fallen  sisters ; 
the  girls  of  the  city  called  her  “the  Mother  of  Bir¬ 
mingham.”  Happy  in  her  husband  and  in  her 
children,  surrounded  by  everything  that  makes  this 
present  life  dear,  she  received  in  the  very  midst  of 
her  years  the  “one  clear  call.”  The  last  evening 
that  she  was  up  she  sang  that  song,  “One  more 
song  .  .  .  and  then  Eternity.”  An  operation 
revealed  that  the  disease  was  incurable  and  her  days 
were  numbered.  When  she  knew,  she  showed  no 
sign  of  grief,  but  proceeded  to  comfort  her  friends, 
telling  them  that  she  was  eager  to  go.  She  had 
nothing  but  the  liveliest  interest  in  the  life  which  was 
coming.  Her  minister  called  to  see  her,  but  she  fore¬ 
stalled  all  consolation  by  saying,  “I  am  not  afraid.” 
On  the  day  when  the  end  was  near  she  called  her 
relatives  into  the  room  and  kissed  them  good-bye 
one  by  one.  Then  she  called  the  nurses  and  kissed 
them,  and  thanked  them  for  their  kindness.  Then 
she  asked  that  the  servants  might  come  in;  she 
kissed  them  and  thanked  them  for  their  service. 
Then  in  a  clear  voice  she  prayed  and  commended 
them  all  to  God.  Presently,  to  every  one’s  surprise, 
she  began  to  sing.  In  a  clear  voice  she  sang  through 
that  matchless  hymn  which  tells  all  the  story  of  our 
need  and  our  redemption : 


378 


GREAT  ISSUES 


“Eternal  light,  Eternal  light, 

How  pure  the  soul  must  be 
When,  placed  within  Thy  burning  sight, 

It  shrinks  not,  but  with  calm  delight 
Can  live  and  look  on  Thee. 

The  spirits  that  surround  Thy  throne 
May  bear  that  burning  bliss; 

But  that  is  surely  theirs  alone, 

Since  they  have  never,  never  known 
A  fallen  world  like  this. 

But  how  shall  I,  whose  native  sphere 
Is  dark,  whose  mind  is  dim, 

Before  the  Ineffable  appear, 

And  on  my  naked  spirit  bear 
The  uncreated  Beam? 

There  is  a  way  for  man  to  rise 
To  that  serene  abode, 

An  offering  and  a  sacrifice, 

A  Holy  Spirit’s  energies, 

An  Advocate  with  God: 

These,  these  prepare  me  for  the  sight 
Of  holiness  above. 

The  sons  of  ignorance  and  night 
May  dwell  in  the  eternal  light 
Through  the  Eternal  Love.” 

When  she  had  finished  this  she  sang  with  equal 
clearness : 

“Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me.” 

Then  her  sister  sang  “ Abide  with  me”;  she  could 
not  do  more  than  join  in  under  her  breath : 

“Hold  thou  Thy  cross  before  my  closing  eyes; 

Shine  through  the  gloom  and  point  me  to  the  skies. 


DEATH 


3  79 


Heaven’s  morning  breaks  and  earth’s  vain  shadows  flee: 

In  life,  in  death,  O  Lord,  abide  with  me !  ” 

“Now  I  am  ready  to  go,”  she  said,  and,  after  a  few 
hours  of  exhaustion,  passed  away. 

I  confess  I  frequently  pray  that  my  own  death 
may  be  like  this,  a  clear  and  ringing  testimony  to  the 
power  and  sufficiency  of  Christ  in  the  hour  of  death 
and  in  the  day  of  judgment.  But  I  recognize  the 
wisdom  which  chooses  for  us,  not  only  the  time,  but 
the  mode  of  our  departure.  It  is  surely  a  high 
grace,  which  can  be  granted  to  but  a  few,  to  light 
up  the  gates  of  death  with  this  ineffable  and  surviving 
glory.  One  thing,  however,  it  is  permitted  to  every 
Christian  to  receive  by  faith  —  that  is,  the  abolition 
of  death.  For  Christ  has  abolished  death  and 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light  in  the  gospel. 


#♦ 


INDEX 


Abyssinian  War,  175 
Addison,  30 
^Esop,  8 
.Esthetes,  287 
Alexander  VI.,  40 
Alfred  the  Great,  369 
Allingham,  William,  268 
Alva,  212 
Apocalypse,  230 

Aristotle,  93,  101,  103,  127,  134, 

167,  171,  335 

Arnold,  Matthew,  268 
Arrian,  354 
Art,  necessity  of,  293 
Art  in  worship,  315 
Astronomy,  225 
Athens,  313 
Aurelius,  Marcus,  39 
Avignon,  71 

Bacon,  192,  255 
Ballard,  Dr.,  54 
Baring  Gould,  Mr.,  15 
Bellamy,  Edward,  150 
Bellini,  Giovanni,  309 
Bentham,  166 

Bible,  the,  75,  211,  230,  285 

Borrow,  George,  265 

Botticelli,  301 

Bradley,  158,  162 

Brewster,  Sir  David,  342,  374 

Bright,  John,  281 

Bryce,  120 

Buckle,  259 

Buffon,  205 

Bunyan,  John,  280 

Burns,  272 

Burton,  Abbot,  68 

Butler,  169,  192 

Byron,  272 


Caird,  176 
Calvin,  212 

Carlyle,  37,  276,  289,  355,  373 
Carruth,  John,  324 
Carruth,  Professor,  28 
Cartaphilus,  14 
Catherine  of  Siena,  176 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  297 
Chemistry,  226 
Chesterton,  Mr.,  156 
Christ,  a  real  Presence,  56 
Christian  Science,  185 
Christianity  best,  46 
Christianity  identified  with  mo¬ 
rality,  64 
Cicero,  359 
Cities  beautified,  312 
Cleanthes,  356 
Clement  VI.,  68 
Clifford,  Professor,  235 
Clootz,  355 
Cobden,  281 
Coleridge,  Herbert,  345 
Comte,  Auguste,  53 
Conscience,  168,  169,  242 
Corot,  303 

Cosmas  Indicopleustes,  189 
Coulton,  Mr.,  63 
Credi,  Lorenzo  di,  301 
Crossley,  Frank,  376 

Dante,  136,  271 
Danton,  356 

Darwin,  122,  194,  247,  284 
Death,  fear  of,  354 
Defoe,  281 
Democracy,  115 
Dissent,  31 
Dissent  in  Russia,  43 
Dobell,  Sidney,  355 


382 


INDEX 


Dobson,  293 

Donne,  272 

Dowden,  293 

Drama,  the,  296 

Drummond,  Henry,  85,  246 

Dualism,  251 

Duel,  174 

Duncan,  Professor,  189 
Dunlins,  322 

Ecclesiastes,  334 
Edkins,  Dr.,  373 
Emerson,  264 
Ephesus,  Council  of,  23 
Eucken,  Professor,  291 

Fabiaus,  125,  151 
Fairbairn,  Dr.,  176 
Fall,  the,  6 
Fiction,  274 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  327 
Florence,  313 
Fourier,  128 

Fox-hunter,  the  Tory,  30 

Galileo,  189 
Gardiner,  S.  R.,  367 
Genesis,  190 
George,  Henry,  148 
Gibbon,  341 

Gladstone,  102,  119,  368 
Gnus,  323 

God  revealed,  53,  250,  335,  338 
Goethe,  272 
Goldwin  Smith,  198 
Gospels,  mythical,  21 
Green,  Thomas  Hill,  97,  178 
Gregory  X.,  71 
Gregory  XI.,  70 
Grenfell,  George,  170 
Guyan,  34 

Haeckel,  54,  159,  177,  190,  196 

Harcourt,  Sir  W.,  124 

Hare’s  “Guesses  at  Truth,”  368 

Harnack,  46 

Harris,  Rendell,  376 

Hazlitt,  346 

Hegel,  158,  177,  295 


Hell,  334 

Hinduism,  181 

Homer,  271 

Hooker,  281,  369 

Howard,  John,  337 

Hume,  281,  356 

Hunt,  Holman,  310 

Huxley,  194,  202,  214,  329,  359 

Immortality,  35,  330,  341,  364 
Increment,  unearned,  153 
Italy,  301 

J.  B.,  68 

James,  William,  158,  164,  179 
Japan,  181 

Jefferson,  the  missionary,  372 
Jesuits,  44 

Jesus,  50,  132,  183,  187,  375 
Jew,  Wandering,  13 
Johnston,  Sir  Harry,  170 
Journal  Intime,  56 
Journalism,  274 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  93,  205 

Kant,  the  “Critique,”  161-2,  1 
Keller,  Helen,  325 
Kelvin,  Lord,  196 
Khayyam,  Omar,  327 
Kropotkin,  Prince,  43,  246 

Land  nationalisation,  150 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  270 

Lanier,  Sidney,  219 

Law,  William,  39,  376 

Lecky,  36,  364 

Leibnitz,  10 

Leighton,  Dr.,  206 

Lenzem,  the  holy  well,  47 

Leo  IX.,  369 

Leo  XIII.,  370 

Leviticus,  79 

Life,  its  goodness,  326 

Lightfoot,  39 

Literature  defined,  259 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  196,  201 

Logos,  243 

Luther,  138 

Lyell,  194 


INDEX 


383 


McCarthy,  Justin,  287 
Maecenas,  319 
Marlowe,  272 
Melrose,  342 

Meredith,  George,  127,  308 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  167,  240 
Millet,  303 
Milman,  370 
Milton,  266,  294,  351 
Mohammedanism,  77,  18 1 
Monasticism,  98,  136,  166 
Morley,  John,  120,  274 
Morris,  William,  127 
Municipalisation,  152 
Murray,  Prof.  Gilbert,  267 
Music,  295 

Nero,  297 
Nicholas  III.,  70 
Nicoll,  Dr.  Robertson,  89 
Nietzsche,  10 

Obermann,  330 
Orsini,  358 
Owen,  128 

Paley,  322 
Pantheism,  241 
Paris,  Matthew,  13 
Pastor,  Prof.  Ludwig,  42 
Pater,  Walter,  277 
Paul,  St.,  352 
Peace,  117,  174 
Pearson,  Karl,  247 
Perugino,  300 
Petrarch,  71 
Petronius,  356 
Phidias,  313 

Plato,  1,  128,  157,  266,  289,  298 
Pliny,  341 

Plotinus,  24,  57,  204 
Poetry,  266 
Politics,  defined,  92 
Pragmatism,  158 
Pre-Raphaelites,  287 
Protestantism,  50 
Psychology,  203,  236 

Quincey,  de,  277 


Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  366 
Ray  Lankester,  Prof.,  200 
Reformation,  The,  74,  138 
Reid,  158 

Religion,  the  differentia  of  man,  32 
Religion  and  pragmatism,  180, 
208 

Renaissance,  the,  301 
Renunciation,  59 
Revelation,  223 
Reville,  33 
Rhadamanthus,  2 
Robertson,  Dr.,  255 
Roumania,  Charles  of,  62 
Rucellai,  41 

Ruskin,  no,  276,  290,  306 

Sand,  George,  287 
Saunderson,  Col.,  102 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  163 
Schopenhauer,  178 
Science  and  Religion,  25,  189 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  341,  348 
Sectarianism,  32 
Severus,  334 

Simpson,  Carnegie,  50,  66 
Sin,  242 

Slavery,  81-2,  172,  213 
Smith,  Adam,  281 
Smyth,  Newman,  76 
Socialism,  124,  135 
Socrates,  356 
Sorrow,  its  use,  61 
Spencer,  Herbert,  53,  157,  223, 

33° 

Spurgeon,  281 

Stephen,  James  Fitzjames,  266 
Stephen,  R.  K.,  332 
Stevens,  Prof.,  352 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  279,  365 
Stirling,  John,  373 
Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  172 
Strauss,  16 
Stubbs,  Bishop,  283 
Superstition,  209 
Swinburne,  267,  269 

Talleyrand,  233 
Theology,  a  New,  232 


384 


INDEX 


Theology,  Queen  of  sciences,  222 

Thomson,  Prof.,  196,  239 

Thurlow,  29 

Thwackum,  Parson,  29 

Tithonus,  332 

Titian,  312 

Titus,  80 

Tolstoi,  49 

Tramps,  320 

Trusts,  15 1 

Tupper,  264 

Turkey,  resuscitated,  114 
Tyler,  37 

Tyrrell,  George,  215 
Union,  39,  45 

United  States  of  Europe,  116 


Utrecht,  Treaty  of,  172 

Virgil,  302 

Walker,  W.  L.,  140 
Walker,  the  Puritan  artist,  293 
Ward,  William  George,  215 
Wesley,  285 
Whitman,  10,  328 
Wilson,  Richard,  309 
Worcester,  Ellwood,  250 
Wordsworth,  271 

Young,  Egerton,  143 

Zangwill,  15 


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